JULY/AUGUST STORY COMP - THIS TIME IT'S WAR!!!

[Bad City Blue]

Salutations, scuzzbags

I humbly approached the throne of Tharg for a story theme, and one of his editorial droids suggested that we should write about WAR.

There's certainly been a lot of it in 2000AD, from Billy Savage though to, um, Billy Savage again, and lots in between.

So what is it good for? Getting creative with some scrotnig stories of no more than 500 words.

As usual, the best rated one will get a 2000AD graphic novel, so get scribbling.

Later, potaters

BCB

[The Legendary Shark]

The War is Coming!
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'Today on MC1HV News 48,' the newsreader's voice oozed from the holovision cube like honeyed oil. 'Welfare Department officials from the Income Distribution Service today outlined rigorous new requirements citizens must meet to qualify for welfare payments...'
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Vic's heart sank. He was already behind with the rent following the last changes imposed by the IDS. Now things were to get worse. He sighed as he watched the report, the knot in his stomach tightening with each new requirement.
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The clattering letterbox startled him and the knot in his stomach exploded in a sickening burst. Was this it? The letter he'd been dreading for so long? Ignoring the news, he padded to the hallway of his hab and stared at the anonymous brown envelope lying on the mat. He steeled himself and picked it up with trembling fingertips. He opened the envelope with exaggerated care, as if the contents might explode or reward him for being gentle.
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His breath became ragged as he read, dread rising from bowels to heart to neck like iced poison. He crumpled the letter and dropped it, feeling numb and cold. This is it, he thought, the war is coming.
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With three days to prepare, Vic spent the first 24 hours in stunned inertia, unable to coax himself into action. He wasted the second day in mindless anger. Why did the war have to come now? Why tell him at all? There was nothing he could do to escape, of this he was certain. He wanted to get drunk or stoned or zizzed but couldn't afford it. Instead he gathered together whatever weapons he could find. Maybe he could fight. But his collection of arms was pathetic - a couple of bustball bats, synthi-bleach sprays and a half-charged las-knife. Not enough to fight the war.
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After a second sleepless night, Vic felt his only option was to run. But how? He couldn't afford the block's elevator fare and the thousands of stairs would defeat his cheap artificial leg. On top of that, the block's exit fee was beyond his empty pockets. Even if he could get out, where would he hide? The war would find him wherever he went. Maybe he should call Justice Department, beg the judges to protect him? But even in his frazzled state he knew this was foolish. He'd end up in a cube and the war would get him anyway.
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He grabbed the twisted, sweat-stained sheets on his bed. There was only one way out.
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***
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Welfare Assessment Robot 2015b regarded Citizen Timson's corpse hanging from a ceiling lamp. Incapable of feeling, it nevertheless knew the IDS would be satisfied. One less drain on resources. It reported to Justice Department and exited the hab. WAR 2015b had many more appointments and couldn't afford to linger.
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468 words.

[Bad City Blue]

veery good

[Eamonn Clarke]

Monsters

Mummy told me there were monsters. They live out there behind the big wall. There didn't used to be monsters. Mummy said in the old world they only appeared in stories. Then a bad man called Booth pressed a magic button and all the monsters became real.

Mummy says I shouldn't worry about monsters, she says the Judge men keep us safe from them. I think she had her fingers crossed when she said that. She also says I can ask a Judge man for help but they scare me as much as the monsters. They don't have eyes or anything, just those big scary hats.

Mummy knows all about monsters and shops and schools and stuff like that. She helps me pick out my clothes and makes me nice things to eat. She says that one day we'll get out of this block and go to live somewhere nicer. She knows lots of stuff but she doesn't know about the monster in the pipes.

My room is real nice with pictures and pretty curtains that Mummy made for me but there are big pipes coming through the wall. Mummy calls them ducts and says they are there to make the air nice but I know they are really where the monster lives.

At night after Mummy has read my story and I've said goodnight to her I lie down and close my eyes. That's when the monster comes and whispers thing. Things like "Miss Shun in concrete". I don't know who Miss Shun is, or why she is in concrete. Maybe she got stuck by accident. One night the monster said "No ta, get a lock" but I don't know what I have to get a lock for.

I think the monster must be lonely, I heard it taking to Miss Shun again this morning, it said "Miss Shun, fail. No talk back." and then it said it was "Searching for home." I think it's lost.

I told Mummy about the lost monster in the pipes but she wasn't really listening to me. Then I asked her why someone would want rusty sequins. She said that was a funny thing to ask. I told her that the monster was trying to sell rusty sequins, I thought it was trying to get money so it could stop living in our pipes and go home.

That's when Mummy got a funny look on her face and asked me exactly what the monster had said. I thought hard and told her it sounded like "Sell this rusty sequin. Fail. Retry" and it kept saying it over and over again. That's when Mummy rushed into my room and put her ear to the pipes.

Now we are sitting in the Judge man wagon and lots of people are running from the block. The Judge man says the monster is called a UXB. I hope it goes home soon so we can as well.

[Woolly]

I've managed to miss these threads for too long, will try to make a contribution in future.

Afraid this is untitled:



He awoke suddenly. To the sound of gunships, and a cruel, choking atmosphere.
A floating metal behemoth spewed a deafening roar from it's retro-engines, as hundreds of heavily armoured troops cascaded down from within it's bloated, steel belly.

His lungs strained with every breath of the foul, sulphuric air, and his head felt like it was spinning. What was he supposed to do? He knew he was meant to do something...

"Wake up dammit, they're everywhere!", he heard a voice say somewhere nearby. Familiar, but he couldn't see anyone around him, just the rapidly advancing enemy troops.
Somewhere close there was a loud bang, and he felt dirt hit the side of his face. In his eye.
It hurt.
Why? It had never hurt before.
Before what? Why couldn't he remember?
He tried to run, but his legs felt like lead. Every movement brought a pain to his chest, which rose up like hot coals in his throat til he was violently sick. Acidic bile, burning his mouth. Sweat dripping into his eyes, stinging them, blurring his vision...

"God's sake, snap out of it! They're nearly on us!"
That voice again. And a noise like thunder, getting closer. Voices in a language he doesn't think he understands. White pain behind the eyes.
Why? He's supposed to be born for this.
Isn't he?

"Something's wrong with him, man, he's covered in sores! Im' taking over!"
His hand jerks back suddenly, the gun he didn't know he was holding firing round after merciless round. Two fuzzy shapes fall and lie still amidst the sea of shapes and colours in his eyes.
Something flies past his ear, and another loud bang happens nearby. He doesn't care anymore.
"I'm getting low on ammo, what the hells wrong with him?"
"Looking for a frequency, but everything's jammed! Unknown toxins in the atmosphere!"
"They're on us, blast 'em!"

The voices, more of them now, all around him, jabbering in unison as the dark blanket falls over his vision and he..




The Rogue Trooper awoke suddenly. To the sound of gunships, and a cruel, choking atmosphere...

[Heath C Ackley]

THE PRINCE OF NO-MAN'S LAND.

The blast illuminated the horizon. I could see blood rise into the night air like sea spray. My new senses revelled in the sights, sounds and scents of suffering. Beneath the stench of charred flesh, I detected the sting of chloroform - a field hospital. My once clumsy feet danced across the battlefield. Voices from the trenches called to me. They did not know that Private Horner did not belong in their army or war any more.

The foreigner had found me waist-deep in a bomb crater. His eyes were glittering jewels as he fed. I swear that had not a shell torn him apart, he would have killed me that night. I spent days begging the Lord to end my damnation. My body and mind suffered great changes. Afterward however, I felt not damned but blessed. I was no longer the seventeen-year old boy destined for the grave but a Prince.

I had not been alone in that crater. Captain Halley lay beside me, bleeding from the gut and rambling with delirium. He declared that War is a beast that devours nations and the souls of the young. My last act of humanity was to wait until he was unconscious before feasting on his blood.

It was a landscape of the broken. Bodies and limbs protruded from the mud. Bitter smoke choked the air. Why had I not thought of a hospital before? Prey was plentiful and weak. My needs would be sated for the rest of the war. Shouts of alarm came from nearby. Time was running out.

A shoe lay under the wreck of an upturned cart. With one hand I hauled the wooden frame aside. She reclined beneath. Her uniform was fouled with dirt. The explosion had blown the cap away, releasing flame-coloured hair to fall to her shoulders. The nurse stirred. After checking that we would not be disturbed, I crouched down over her.

The force that struck me was incredible. Thrown backward, I tumbled amongst the wreckage and the dead. The nurse leapt to her feet and attacked with ferocity and great speed. She was of the same kin but faster and stronger than I. In an instant, her hand was at my throat and hoisting me upward until my boots were inches from the ground. Her queer eyes blazed.

'I have walked the Dark Path for centuries.' Her fingers dug into my cold flesh. 'Did you really think that I would give up such fertile ground to a whelp like you?'

With that, she tore out my throat. I sank to my knees. Floodgates opened below my chin. Blood - Halley's and that of the Hun I slaughtered the night before - drained to the hungry earth. The woman disappeared into the dense smoke.

So here I lie, withered and brittle, buried with the countless souls who sacrificed their lives for the ground above and those that live upon it.

[allied72]

War, good grud....

The pile of equipment that was Grosz didn't move. A swift kick from Dix gave life to the masked jumble. "Uh, huh? What? What?" The slumbering mound shook itself,  groping for a weapon, a bottle. "Something happening Dix?"
Dix turned his head from the slit of the bunker. 'No, all quiet, same view it was last night", maybe with a bad smell thought Dix, if he could smell it, if he could take the mask off for just one quick inhale, a last gasp before toxins overtook him and he slumped next to Grosz on the floor.
"Why'd you wake me, I was....." Dix cut him short. "Grosz..." he starred at the other man. "Grosz, what are we doing here?" Grosz paused, a slight frown would have shown on his face, if you could have seen his face.
"Fighting the Southerns for love of the motherland and... " Again Dix cut him off. "Cut it out Grosz, it's just you and me in this bunker, no brass, no politik. I didn't ...  Grosz..... they just massacred them, blew them out of the sky, like shooting fish in a....." Dix's eyes filled up with tears, his haz-suit would soon extract the moisture along with perspiration and recycle it, but for now, tears stung his eyes.
Grosz lifted himself from the floor to a chair with some effort. His bones ached and his head hurt from the alcosynth he had replaced his H20 cylinder with. Now his mouth was dry and he searched out the discarded water cylinder in the pile of equipment on the table he sat at.
He sighed, stopped looking and turned to the standing figure, still absently gazing through the slit.
"I'm guessing your young Dix, I haven't seen your face under all that equipment, so I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking you signed when the recruiter came to town and told you to do your duty and help free our beloved North motherland from the tyrant souther scum? Am I right? And for most of them souls we shot out of the sky last night it was the same story, only we were the boogie man and they were the saviours of women and children etc. And I'm betting they have old vets like me, telling the young idealistic brats like you just what's what when it comes to the killing and the blood etc. What are we doing here? Son, it's war. War is war, you shoot first if you want to survive, you hit them with all you got before they hit you. So keep your head down, mouth shut and get on with it.  You might just end up on the winning side."
Grosz went back to searching. "You listening to me Dix?" He turned his head to see if the younger man had recovered his composure, he was still staring out the slit.
"Dix, you listening, Dix?"
"Grosz?....there's someone out there, in the mist."
"Yeah? One of the mop up crew?"
"It's blue"

[Jacqusie]

Is there a deadline for entries, sorry I'm last minute as usual...

Si

[Eamonn Clarke]

I'd guess the end of August ?

[Jacqusie]

I'd guess the end of August ?

You would have thought so, but the last one closed a bit earlier than the end o' the month.

[Echidna]

Silo 7

"There are half a billion people in my city, Dredd! You can't just wipe them out!"

The Sov commander was shaking with fear. A bead of sweat drew a slug trail down his temple.

"Half my city is burnt to ash," Dredd replied, "and you're begging me for mercy?" He turned his back on the terrified Sov and crossed the ops room to the missile control panel.

Something felt wrong. For a moment he thought he heard footsteps on either side of him. The fluorescent lights flickered, and everything went black.

***

Dredd opened his eyes. He was in a bare room, tied to a chair. The chair was screwed to the floor, but the bolts were loose. With enough force, he might be able to -

"Don't waste your time," said a voice, and Dredd looked up to see a young man and a woman, wearing trenchcoats and sunglasses. Indoors.

"You're not Sovs," said Dredd. "You sure as hell aren't Justice Department. Whoever you are, I'm not talking."

The woman pulled back a sleeve, revealing a wristband studded with brightly-coloured buttons. She pressed one of them and smiled. "This isn't an interrogation, Dredd. It's an intervention. You're about to launch a nuclear strike that will obliterate East-Meg One and kill 500 million people."

Dredd looked at her. "And?"

The young man kicked him square in the chest. "You're going to murder half a billion human beings, you monster!"

Dredd grimaced. "We're at war. The Sovs are slaughtering us. The response is appropriate."

"They're civilians, not soldiers! 500 million men, women and children, and you're killing them for revenge!"

"This isn't about revenge, it's about ending a war. It's about crippling the Sov army and protecting my city."

The man made a fist, but the woman held him back. "Your actions won't protect anyone, Dredd. The Sovs will retaliate."

"Of course they will. But it'll take them years to recover. We'll be ready."

"No. You'll never see it coming. They'll kill millions more. And after that things only get worse."

"You're talking about this like it's already happened."

"It has. For us, eighty years have passed since the Apocalypse War."

"Time travellers. Great," Dredd muttered. "So you've come back to kill me?"

"No," said the woman. "We're giving you a choice. You can press that button and condemn the human race to decades of bloodshed, or..." She trailed off, looking at Dredd's impassive expression. "Please, Dredd. At least think about it."

***

The lights flickered. Dredd was standing at the control panel, finger poised over the launch button. To the Judges and Sov technicians, perhaps it looked like Dredd paused for the briefest moment at the controls. Perhaps they dismissed it as a trick of the bunker's failing lights. If he had paused, it was surely for dramatic effect. Anyway, they agreed (if they spoke of it at all in the days that followed), when the time came to press the button, he didn't hesitate. Not even for a second.

"Request denied."

[jabish]

Voices in The Dark

-I think we have a situation arising, sir.
-Go on.
-Well, There's been a lot of strange activity. It's hard to explain but we've started to notice little things. Glitches in everyday happenings if you will. That's what tipped us off. It isn't bad now but its going to get worse.
-Glitches you say?
-Example; there has been an increase in parents reporting their children missing only to realise that they never had children in the first place. There are others. Small Things, yes, but steadily getting worse.
-Worse?
-Yes sir, a lot worse. Some of our more sensitive operatives are already having revised memories. At the moment precogs are having trouble predicting anything past a 2-year period.
-Not Good.
-No sir.
-So, we are experiencing a shift in our past. Have we tracked the specific event that caused this?
-Impossible sir. It would be like looking for a needle in haystack. It's our own fault of course. All this messing about with time. It was bound to have some consequence.
-Facts not opinions please.
-Sorry sir. This is a grave situation... but not utterly hopeless. We may not have a specific event to latch on to but the result of the event, the major shift in history, has been identified. The War never happened.
-The Apocalypse War?
-No sir. The Atomic War. Some of our people have experienced the changeover while going through routine regression exercises. The zero event, whatever little thing it was, leads to President Robert L. Booth being an exponent of peace and so does not instigate World War Three. Mega City One will never be built, and the Justice Department as we know it will never have existed. We ourselves may cease to exist. Of course I should have reported it to the Grand Hall straight away but, well, it needs a more... "Intellectual" approach shall we say?
-It sounds like you have a suggestion.
-Yes sir, if I can be so bold. We have been experimenting with regression for some years now. Casting minds back to previous lives and so on. Our more powerful operatives believe that they could also bring a mind forward. We plan to bring the mind of a teenage Robert Booth forward to experience a dark point in our history, to witness an event so horrifying that it will trigger his warlike behaviour in later life as we have always known it.
-So what point would that be? You have a lot to choose from.
-Necropolis, sir.
-I see. Very good. He will witness The Dark Judges slaughter of millions and what he thinks was a dream will become a premonition when he sees the first Judge uniform and it will break his mind. Yes?
-Exactly. A long shot, but I think it is imperative we keep history as it is.
-I agree. Our society must remain intact. The law, our law, is tantamount. See that your plan is executed. Pick a team to assist you, only those you trust. Send the others who know of this for dream therapy and suppress the knowledge.
-Yes sir, right away.
-You were right not to go all the way to the top with this, it will save a lot of trouble in the long run.
-Yes Sir. Thank you Chief Shenker.

[Skullmo]

When is the deadline?

[Jacqusie]

In The Twilight of Barbarossa

I can wait no longer. The liberation of Northern Bukovina has been entrusted to the Romanian Army and I have no further need of these Wehrmacht dogs to be my allies.

Antonescu's reluctant attempts at our alliance ends here, at the river Dniester. Let our Rumanian forces push forth with the panzer divisions, while the soviets employ their pathetic flame-throwers, crudely burning everything into Bessarabia. Tonight Constanta must feed.

The shadows leap and dance as the fires burn wild, houses and villages are set ablaze. The cornfields send up thick, acrid, sweet smelling smoke as the husks blister and burst. A scorched earth retreat from the charred farmland, the river and it's dug in bunkers.

The Red Army leave in haste, destroying everything in sight. The inhumane and intentional starvation of the poor civilians which remain behind, now must face German occupation. Both sides do not come out of this situation well. The perpetual twilight of the savage Operation Barbarossa.

Centuries old, I've fought the Tartars and the Turks for Rumania and now with the Germans against the Soviets. I've played along with the mortals as they brutally kill each other in massacre's of such human waste and sorrow.

Constanta doesn't wish for any of their petty glories, the towering bone yards of humanitarian barbarity each side wishes to build. I am beyond mere mortal concerns of such slaughter on a scale of immeasurable consequences.

By day my men and I have been nesting in the barn roofs before they too were set ablaze. The train yards full of empty rolling stock were then our sanctuary, where we could remain in peace. The Soviet warmongers left not a single rail wagon when they destroyed the freight depots by fire and explosion. We burned then, the fires catching before we could wake and flee. But the undead do not stay ash and cinder for long.

We reform, winged, swift and hungrily in search of much needed nourishment to walk the nights. The humans we feed on, sometimes we let join our ranks of the undead. Our gift to humanity, that is seemingly hell bent on destroying itself.

Am I not generous, in allowing a few to join me on my undead pathway, where we can feed on both the flotsam and the most noble of generals as products of the unstoppable war machines?

To take them away from the insanity of the great game and to give them immortality is surely more venerable than playing at war games to glorify their murderous actions, fighting for a cause, only they believe is honourable.

Sometimes we get carried away and careless in our pursuit of sustenance, and we fled at speed into this accursed windmill. The cross of it's wooden sails turns slowly from a limp breeze. The raging fires surrounding, forming a shadow, the damned symbol of Christ on the corn we cannot fly across.

We must bide our time, until the soviet flame-throwers reach our dwelling...

...Then we Vampyr will feed.

[Bad City Blue]

The First Casualty

Shawny was excited. He looked at the Commander in anticipation and saluted. The Commander looked him up and down.
"You have made the right choice, son," he said. "This no ordinary war you've signed up for – this is Judge war. Now take this and kill as many of the drokkers as you can."
With this he handed Shawny an old fashioned shotgun, and Shawny grinned. It was what he'd been hoping for, a real weapon for close quarters gore, like in the illegal slugs of old war comics he'd read.

He took the weapon and spare ammo, then set off on his own, into the rabbit warren of The Maze, deep in Mega City One's less savoury parts. The Judges were trying to clean it out, but the hadn't reckoned on him.

Shotgun held out in front of him, he rounded a corner to find a Judge facing away from him. With a grin he crept up and blasted the lawboy in the head, laughing as the helmet disintegrated along with the flesh inside.

A laser blast whizzed by his head, so he dived to the floor and came up ready, blasting the Judge who had tried to get him, the shotgun blast tearing through the uniform and tearing the man's guts out.

A quick reload and he was off, and over the next five minutes he killed eight more Judges, laughing at each grisly death. This isn't a war, he thought, it's a massacre.

Suddenly, his world exploded as the VR visor was wrenched from his head. After his eyes had adjusted to the light in his bedroom he looked up at the Judge who had removed it.
"Judge War, eh?" Judge Lister said. "This game is illegal, as you well know citizen."
"I didn't know... I'm innocent!" protested Shawny weakly.
" Well, they say that's the first casualty," said the Judge, and took him away.