| Fiction |
Tomorrow’s Light
Written by Drew Clements
Conceptualized by Drew Clements and Bryan Hester
(Part Three)
Jackie had been playing cards against this idiot for nearly
two weeks now and it had been the same thing every day:
they’d play and Jackie would win… every time. Now, any
person in their right mind will tell you that winning is a
good thing, but for someone as talented at pretty much any
game involving cards as Jackie, it just gets boring. The
same opponent over and over with absolutely no stakes worth
mentioning is about as exciting as watching paint dry; it
was more than boring, it was frustrating.
“I’m tired of this!” He had had enough.
With a violent swing of a massive, furry arm, cards and
table went flying.
“Ain’tcha s’posed to be smart? How come you cain’t win a
damn thing?”
The ‘squatch didn’t know his own strength; at least, that’s
how he portrayed it when he got that horrible look from
Bella from across the room.
She was leading this little group and he had found out over
the past two weeks exactly why. You see, Jackie had a hard
time taking orders, especially from women, and he to warm up
a bit to Bella before he would. Actually, she had twisted
his arm around in such a fashion that it was on the verge of
being broken and asked quite nicely from his loyalty. That’s
something of a feat, considering his seven foot, hefty
frame.
“I didn’t mean to.” Jackie hurried to pick up the table and
the cards. Bella turned her attention back toward a book.
“You’re too good for me, my friend.” Copper smiled; it
caused the fur on Jackie’s arm to stand on end.
“You Zars creep me out, what with your weird green eyes and
saggy skin.”
“Zar.”
“Zar? Zars.” Jackie was puzzled.
“Do you refer to sheep as sheeps? It’s “Zar.” No “s.””
Copper sighed.
“Bah, it don’t matter none to me. I could rip ya in half
and you’d be screwed.” Jackie began dealing out a hand.
Copper smiled, the stupidity was amusing. But he knew the
big dolt wasn’t lying and, if irritated enough, probably
would rip this body in half. That would be unfortunate;
he had recently stolen this body from a rather seedy looking
young man. You know the type: slicked back jet black hair,
tiny moustache, beady eyes; the kind of person that would
swindle their mothers out of their pop’s life insurance.
Copper found it appropriate. So did everyone else.
Unfortunately, this body would be all used up in a matter of
a day or two, so it behooved him to find another soon.
“How many of you Zars have been taken out so far?” Jackie
asked, while grabbing a card. Copper thought for a minute,
“Ten in the last three days.”
“You guys aren’t worth the bodies you steal. They shoulda
never thawed ya out.” Jackie chuckled; the stench of tobacco
poured from his mouth.
“Thaw would mean that we were frozen in the first place.”
Copper shook his head.
“Whatever.”
“For your information, we were released from an urn in
which we had been imprisoned since the Second World War”
Copper explained. “Our time then was short.”
“Second World War, huh? I remember that, it was funny.”
Jackie smiled.
Copper continued, “We had been imprisoned long before the
outbreak of the Second World War by The Council, but the
Ahnenerbe released us with an agreement to do their
bidding.”
Jackie yawned, “Ahnnn..erbes?”
“Ahnenerbe, the Nazi Occult Bureau.”
Bella looked up at the mention of the name.
Copper felt it was probably a good time to stop the
conversation; she had this knack for shutting down any sort
of conversation she didn’t want to hear. Copper was unsure
of her ties to the Ahnenerbe, but certainly didn’t want to
press the issue any further-even if it was a conversation
that didn’t involve her.
“AGAIN!” Jackie slammed his fist down on the table,
breaking it in half; cards flew into the air.
“You win.” Copper smiled, looking at the big ugly monster.