The shouts of panic and pain coming from the campsites all around him told Bo he had little time to prepare for the fight ahead. His dad's old pistol was under the front seat of the pickup that hauled his food truck around, but the pitmaster didn't like the idea of shooting near so many friendlies. Bo decided protection from any more scalding injuries was in order, so he grabbed the heavy, rubberized apron and pit gloves out of the food truck, so left it behind. He doubted shooting a hunk of possessed meat would have much effect, anyway.
Bo glimpsed himself in his pickup’s side mirror and couldn’t help but chuckle. The sleeveless concert T-shirt, blue basketball shorts, and battered cowboy boots were only made more ridiculous by the addition of the heavy black apron and elbow-length gloves. He didn’t look the part of a hero, but he didn’t have time to change into something more dashing. People needed his help.
Bo stormed over to the nearest campsite, apron slapping against his bare legs. He recognized the battered RV as belonging to Slick Brand, a middle-aged master of wings with a sense of humor darker than his mahogany skin. Bo heard the older man cursing up a storm inside the RV, which rocked on its wheels like there was a swinger’s party inside.
“Coming in!” Bo shouted as he mounted the steps to the RV’s door. The last thing he wanted was to surprise Slick and catch a panicked shot.
“Door’s locked!” Slick shouted back.
“Not anymore,” Bo said. He grabbed hold of the RV’s recessed door handle and pulled back with all his considerable strength. The plastic and aluminum locking mechanism gave up the fight with a defeated squeal and a loud pop.
The scene inside the RV was equal parts hilarious and horrifying. Slick was in the kitchen to the left of the door, a meat tenderizer in one hand and an aluminum baking tray in the other. Cuts and scratches had ruined his shirt, and he was covered head to toe in splashes of a vibrant orange sauce.
More of the sauce covered the counter and floor, where an overturned five-gallon bucket of the stuff had emptied its guts.
The sauce also covered a hundred chicken wings that hurled themselves at slick by flexing their meaty drumettes and flats. Bony spurs thrust from the tips of the jumping wings in desperate attempts to slash or impale Slick.
“You gonna stand there gawking or give me a hand?” Slick bellowed as he swatted a squadron of flying devil wings out of the air.
Bo wanted to help, but wasn’t sure how. He watched the undead wings for a moment and was surprised when another glowing screen appeared.
GRAIL SYSTEM MONSTER ANALYSIS
Type: Possessed Carrion Swarm
Core Level: 0
STR: -1, DEX: 0, INT: -2, WIS: -1, RES: -1, CON: +1
Type: Possessed Carrion Swarm
Innate Abilities: Wing Storm, All For One
Role: Striker
END MONSTER ANALYSIS
Bo wasn’t sure what all that meant, but it didn’t really matter. He needed to kill this swarm of sauce-slathered food before it tore Slick apart. It was time to put the Carnivore’s Cleaver card to work.
CARNIVORE’S CLEAVER EQUIPPED! CARD RETURNED TO DECK!
The heavy weight of a long-handled meat chopper settled into Bo’s right hand. He nearly dropped the thing after its unexpected appearance in his gloved hand, but quickly tightened his grip to keep it from falling to the floor. Before he could sweep the weapon through the sloppy wings on the floor, though, another message popped up. Time seemed to slow as Bo read the floating words.
CARDS DEALT!
Danger Spice
Hackstorm
Carnivore’s Cleaver
Mana Available: 2 Str, 4 Con.
Please select cards to activate.
WAITING SELECTION...
The world seemed to have stopped for the moment, giving Bo time to review his choices. He had more Constitution than Strength, and Danger Spice might weaken the wing swarm. That would help Slick and Bo, so he activated that card first. A green rectangle with the card at its center appeared in the air above the swarm.
An attack card was an obvious choice, but Bo wasn’t sure which to use. The Hackstorm card would use all his available Strength mana to attack every adjacent target with a Power 1 attack. The Cleaver card could only hit a single target, but the X in its cost told Bo he could spend some or all of his Strength mana to make it do more damage.
Bo realized there wasn’t really a choice to make. The wings looked like a bunch of different monsters, but, according to the glowing message he’d received a few seconds before, were really one big swarm. He selected the Carnivore’s Cleaver card and put all his Strength mana into it.
Time rushed back into motion. Bo felt disconnected from the scene, as if he were watching himself from slightly above the battle. Something glowing appeared in his left hand, and he flung it at the wing swarm. Sparkling powder shot through with spots of red and silver fell onto the saucy meat, instantly causing the disembodied wings to flinch.
CARD RESULTS!
Danger Spice
Attacker Core Level 1 + Card Power 1 = Attack 2
Defender Core Level 0 + Constitution Resistance 1 = Defense 1
Result: Attack 1
Wing Swarm is disoriented!
Cleaver
Attacker Core Level 1 + Card Power 2 = Attack 3
Defender Core Level 0 + Dexterity Resistance -2 = Defense -2
Result: Attack 5
Wing Swarm suffers a Significant Wound!
END CARD RESULTS. TURN COOLDOWN 5 SECONDS
The cleaver swept through the wings on the floor, shattering bones and shearing hunks of meat. Broken wing tips, amputated drumettes, and flailing flats all flew into the air with sauce flying from their puckered skin.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Slick brought his meat tenderizer down a split second later, shattering a handful of leaping wings. The tiny kitchen was suddenly silent. Slick and Bo looked at one another with wild eyes.
POSSESSED CARRION DESTROYED. 87 POSSESSED CARRION REMAIN.
“What the hell is going on?” Slick asked.
“If you heard the voice making all that racket earlier, you know as much as I do,” Bo admitted.
“I hoped that wasn’t real,” Slick said, scratching his chin. “I thought maybe I had some kind of stroke or something.”
“It wasn’t a stroke, unless we had the same one,” Bo said. “I had a few hundred bucks worth of brisket jump out of my smoker and try to kill me after that voice started hollering. You didn’t find any cards in that mess of chicken, did you?”
“I wasn’t about to sit down for a game of Texas Hold ‘em,” Slick answered. “Only thing those wings had was the sauce I mopped them with.”
“Well, crap,” Bo said. “I’d hoped someone else had a deck. Would have made it easier to clean up the rest of the monsters out there. Come on, let’s help the others.”
Slick coughed out a wry chuckle. “You hear all that ruckus out there? That’s a good reason to not stick our noses out where they could get chopped off.”
“If we stay in here, a lot of other people will die,” Bo said matter-of-factly. “I won’t be able to live with myself if I let that happen.”
Slick looked at the younger man with eyes that suddenly seemed ancient to Bo. “You’re a lot like your old man. Always know just what to say to get people moving in the direction you want,” Slick said. “I don’t know anything about this business with cards, but you’re right. People need our help. So lead the way and keep that cleaver ready. You looked pretty handy with it.”
“That’s mostly the cards,” Bo said, as if that explained everything. “The cleaver and the spices were all part of the deck I found.”
“Well, if you find anymore of those magic cards lying around, let me know,” Slick said, chuckling again. “I could use all the help I can get. Feeling every day of fifty years old.”
“That’s pretty shitty considering you’re only forty-two,” Bo said. “Now stop your bellyachin’. We got monsters to kill.”
Bo left the RV with his cleaver cocked back, ready to strike at any monsters who showed flopped out to attack. He realized it was a lot easier to handle all this if he just pretended he saw game screens because he was in a game. Games had rules, just like barbecue competitions, and he could win if he followed them. In this case, that meant killing a bunch more possessed carrion.
REMAINING POSSESSED CARRION: 83
While the young pitmaster appreciated the running tally of monsters that still needed killing, what truly mattered to Bo was how many of his fellow barbecue masters were still alive.
“Over here,” Bo said, aiming his cleaver at a pick-up in the next stall over from Slick’s. He recognized it by the collection of contradictory bumper stickers that covered the hard-sided camper that filled the truck’s bed. Save the whales. Dolphins taste like tuna. Keep on Truckin’. If you’re close enough to read this, I can hit my brakes and sue you. Baby on board. Honk if parts fall off.
As weird as the bumper stickers were, the truck belonged to one of the nicest women Bo had ever met. Gertrude Amalba was a thousand-years’ worth of grandma hugs shoved into an eighty-year-old body.
Racks of ribs surrounded the pickup. The bony slabs undulated up and down like caterpillars to move, a process that was blessedly slow. If they’d been any quicker, they’d already be in the camper trying to kill Gertrude.
“What’s the plan?” Slick asked.
“Fuck ‘em up,” Bo replied.
The men hit the circle of ribs hard and fast. Bo didn’t even bother using cards. He just stomped with his heavy boots and chopped the ribs into slivers with his cleaver. The ribs were tougher than the swarm of wings, but they were too slow to put up much of a fight. They might have been a serious threat to an old woman, but two able-bodied adults—even if one of them complained about being an old man—dealt with them easily enough.
“You know, those were heritage Kurobota spareribs,” Gertrude mused. “Too bad you had to chop ‘em into burger meat.”
“They’d have killed you dead, Gerty,” Slick said.
“I know, I know,” the old woman said. “It’s just what with inflation and all, mighta been better to let ‘em take me out.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Bo said, his brows furrowed. “You’ve gotta a lot of years left.”
“Spoke like a true child,” Gertrud responded, patting Bo on the cheek to lessen the sting of her words. “Mind telling me why my prize-winning ribs turned into homicidal maniac meat?”
“Wish I had a good answer for you,” Bo said. “You probably heard the voice shouting a while back. Sounds like we’ve got a lot more trouble coming our way.”
“Didn’t hear anything,” Gertrude said, pulling her curly gray hair back to reveal her hearing aids. “Didn’t have my ears on until after I felt the ribs thumping around in the freezer. They got out about the same time I got my hearing ads plugged in. You saw the rest.”
“Something about devils and harvesters and magic cards,” Slick said. “You didn’t find a deck laying around in your rig, did you?”
“I didn’t find squat,” Gertrude said. “But if I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
The sounds of fighting still rang out through the night. Bo took Gertrude’s hand in his gloved fingers and looked the old woman in the eyes. “Other people need our help, Gerty,” he said. “Might be safer for you to come with us.”
“I’d only slow you down,” Gerty said. “Go on, now, save the world. I’ll be fine here, watching the stars. Though I don’t recognize a damned constellation up there. And two moons? Feels like this the end times.”
“This isn’t the end of anything,” Bo said. “Stay inside. Don’t open the door. We’ll come back for you when this is all over. You still got some fight in you, Slick?”
“You’d better believe it,” Slick said. “For at least another five minutes.”
“Your girlfriend would be extra grateful if you could hold out for that long,” Bo said as they made their way to the next trailer over from Gertrude’s.
“If you didn’t have those cards,” Slick started, but the younger man silenced him with a finger to his lips. Bo peered around the edge of the rusty VW camper van, then looked back at Slick with five fingers raised and mouthed words “pork loin.”
The pair moved quickly and quiet around the van to rescue a pair of young hippies Bo didn’t recognize. Their long dreadlocks, tie-dyed T-shirts, baggy pants, and sandals were not par for the course around the barbecue scene, but they were friendly enough. The duo introduced themselves as Ryan and Raya, twin ladies who’d come down from Seattle after making a splash up there with weed-infused barbecue sauces. That flavor profile didn’t sound appetizing to Bo, but this wasn’t the time to yuck anyone else’s yum. Especially when Ryan and Raya expressed an interest in joining Bo and Slick to kick some carrion ass.
Things went fast after that. Four fighters became six, then eight, then a dozen as the group cleared out the sites that surrounded Bo’s. Armed with cleavers, butcher knives, meat tenderizers, and assorted other kitchen implements, the party followed Bo down the small hill to the larger campsite where the shit had already well and truly hit the fan.
There’d been more folks down here to fight off the carrion, but there was also a lot more demonically possessed meat. Hacked up thigh bones, splintered ribs, and uncountable hunks and shreds of beef, chicken, and pork had turned the ground into a gory, muddy mess.
Bo and those who’d followed him moved from one battle to the next, careful to watch each other's backs and forming makeshift shield walls to protect those who slipped and fell in the mud. The gang of pitmasters added more to their number as they cleared one site after another, and Bo couldn’t help but feel proud of the work they’d done.
Thirty minutes after the voice from the sky had warned everyone of their impending doom, Bo and the rest of the pitmasters stood before a final, massive meat cooler sitting on a heavy duty trailer. It was a fancy contraption hooked up to a diesel generator, and it could hold massive amounts of meat. Despite its size, the refrigerated box looked tiny next to the enormous RV it was parked beside.
“I think we’ve got ourselves a problem,” the big RV’s owner said.
She was a slender redhead, with sprays of freckles across her cheeks and the tip of her nose. She spoke with a faint southern accent and ended her sentences with a wry grin that had burned itself into Bo’s memory years ago.
“Well, Jenny,” he said, hefting his cleaver. “So far today, I haven’t seen a problem I couldn’t solve with the careful application of brute force and homicidal intent.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, descending the staircase from her Hollywood-style RV and the muddy ground. “But the problem I see right now is that you need a couple of baths and a gallon of soap before I want you within a hundred yards of me.”
“You don’t look so fresh yourself,” Bo said, gesturing toward Jenny’s blood-smeared T-shirt and jeans. Flashes of skin peaked through the holes in the clothes, revealing even more blood. The pitmaster tried to hide his concern, because Jenny hated when anyone worried about her. “How much of that blood is yours?”
“Not much,” she said, then held out her left forearm. “Damned chicken thighs left that bruise. Never seen anything like it. Got a couple of holes in my back where an angry chicken wing got the drop on me.”
“Punctures are nasty,” Bo said. “Better get some alcohol on those before they get infected and you catch chicken-shit fever.”
“You’re the only one who’d know anything about chicken shit,” Jenny said with a grin. “Now get over here and give me a hug before I tell you the real problem.”
The years melted away as Bo and Jenny embraced. He towered over her and his arms damn near wrapped around the girl twice, while she could barely make her fingertips reach at his back.
“It’s been too long,” Bo said.
“Half a damned decade,” Jenny admitted. “You know how YouTube can be.”
Bo didn’t, but he also didn’t care. They held on a touch more than good friends might. Then Jenny slipped out of his grip and motioned to the cooler.
“There’s our problem,” Jenny said. She walked over and hit the lock that held its doors closed with the back of one hand.
Something roared from inside the metal box, its anger reverberating like thunder rolling in ahead of a storm. Bo felt a chill race down his back, and a sense of deep foreboding settled around his heart. Whatever was in there was powerful, and super, super mad at the world.
“What do you have in there, Jenny Wriggs?” Bo asked.
The twenty-something host of YouTube’s most famous how-to barbecue show, “Jenny’s Peach Pit,” struck a pose and gestured at the quaking cooler with one hand.
“Why, this is a full Berkshire hog. Cleaned and dressed, it comes in at two-hundred and fifty pounds, and boy, Bo, does it sound fucking pissed!”