ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE - Chapter One

He's back in another adventure.

Rocketman in this serial chapter play series is now called Commando Cody.

It was fun seeing how the big motion picture companies played off each other and stole ideas by slightly changing them, though not always by much.

What's fun, especially now, and a bit sad at the same time, is watching a very young Leonard Nimoy play an alien invader.

Little did I know when I was watching him as a child that later on as an adult I would be watching him make the character of Spock worldwide famous. I suspect he was as surprised as anyone. No actor can ever know how famous, or if at all, they will be.

Fame can be as elusive as a soap bubble.

Anyway,

Enjoy

John

Rhubarby Pie, "A Chittles and Redeye Story."

"I don't believe in love." Redeye said over a glass of Sherry and rhubarb pie. He stirred the gooey pie on the plate before him, shaping it thoughtfully as he sipped occasionally from his crystal Merryweather Glass, imported from Gloucester.

Chittles eyed him sternly. "You've been in love more times than grass grows in the Spring."

"We have no grass." Redeye replied frothily, a touch of rhubarb on his nose.

Chittles pointed to his own nose.

Redeye grabbed his napkin and swabbed at Chittle's nose. 

"Not mine, you idiot! Yours!"

"Oh." Chittles responded weakly, then dabbed the pie from the tip of his beaky nose.

Chittles reached towards the center of the short dining table they use when it was just them and moved his pawn forward diagonally opposite Redeye's queen.

"That's unusual." Redeye noted.

"Checkmate."

"Hardly." Redeye replied, moving his Queen diagonally until it was directly in line with Chittles' King, who had no exit in any direction but towards the King.

"Good move."

"I rather think so." Redeye said, squinting at his pie.

"What's with the pie search?" Chittles demanded, his temper rising as he felt more and more ignored by his good friend and detective companion.

"It resembles the kidneys that were taken from Lord Peterbrooke's body and placed on his wife's boudoir."

Chittles had been raising his own pie to his mouth, grimaced, then placed his pie back on its plate, and shoved it away.

"You know how to ruin everything."

"I'm an expert at it, you know."

"Do I ever." Chittles replied.

"No, not that, this."

Redeye shoved his plate closer to Chittles to see. Chittles stopped fuming and his eyes widened.

"I'll get the car!"

"Righto!" Redeye replied. "I'll get the guns."

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They met out front of the rather sumptuous two story Elizabethan Mansion that Redeye maintained with the wealth of his inheritance from his late father, Lord Redeye of Thumberland. The Tesla made a light purring sound as its electric engine sucked in the purple and blue energies of the Tesla battery.

Redeye hopped into the front seat next to Chittles, who floored the power pedal, and sent them squealing off into the center of the road, leaving a smoking trail of rubber behind them.

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Lady Peterbrooke sat on her fan porch, where twin fans, mounted with Tesla engines purred quietly, keeping the air stirred above her  Pompidou hairdo, which was the rage of Parisian ladies at that time. She sipped at a glass of lemonade that her maid had just placed on the antique Edwardian foot table with its ornate King and Queen legs with raised gold bars. The leggings of the porch railings were also embossed with gold leafs and roses of a ruby gold metal, creating an artificial look of a garden bordering her porch and enclosing it in a warmth of nature.

In a neatly embroidered bag hanging from the side of her chair were darning needles and yarn of a colorful nature. Several of the needles seemed a bit rusty.

She eyed the New London Brazier, a rather radical newspaper that demanded freedom for women, and was co-sponsored by Lady Shareen, the fiancée of Lord Graystone, also known as the Jungle Lord. She gave herself permission to hold the paper lightly on her lap, where a gold chemise napkin laid lightly to catch any crumbs or liquid that might decide to play there.

She looked at the picture of a man standing next to Lord Graystone, which was the trademark logo of the paper. Man and woman united in power. Equal in abilities. It was New Age according to all the occultists and a sign of the coming of the New Christ who would lift up the masses and bring them on the golden trail to Heaven, where they would all live forever and ever with their accumulated wealth and power.

She thrilled at that prospect. Her late husband had as well before he...

"Lady Peterbrooke, there are two gentlemen here to see you." Maid Margaret's said to her from the screened door, her form invisible behind it.

"Oh?"

"Lord Thumberland's son and Chittles, I believe his name was or is, I should say. Rather remarkable men too. Very strange, but different. Shall I bring them to you?"

Lady Peterbrooke rose carefully and set the paper and her lemonade down. "Please do. But ask them to wait five minutes for me to freshen before they come back here."

"Yes, Madam." Maid Margaret replied.

But instead of preparing herself as she had promised and indicated, Lady Peterbrooke did a very remarkable thing. She hiked her bloomers so that her stockinged legs were visible and leaped the porch railing and ran as nimbly as a rabbit for the backyard fence, where there was a ladder against it. She reached the ladder, and began rapidly climbing it.

As she reached the top, an ugly, grinning face smiled into her startled one.

Chittles touched his hat in a gentlemanly fashion. "Good day to you, Lady Peterbrooke. I have the pleasure of escorting you to your new home."

She looked down and saw Redeye standing next to a gentleman with a severe scowl on his face.

He turned to Redeye. "Exactly as you indicated she would be and do."

Redeye nodded, as Chittles helped Lady Peterbrooke down the ladder on the other side of the wall, then guided her to the back of a constable wagon, where Constable Evans touched his cap, then gently, but firmly escorted her into the back, and placed handcuffs on her.

"But what I don't understand is how you determined she would flee like this?"

"Rhubarb pie. You see." Redeye leaned close to the Inspector and smiled. "When we found her husband, as she claims he had been discovered, his kidneys and intestines had been wrapped about each other like a slice of pie ready to be eaten."

Inspector Bloodstone made a face like he was going to be sick, then stiffened. "I see. But how does this relate to the death?"

Chittles explained. "In order to wrap the intestines and kidneys about each other, one would need the correct kind of darning tools. And..."

Redeye finished. "Lady Peterbrooke is the only one within fifty square kilometers of London that has such tools." He held up her darning bag, and thrust out the needles with the rusty stains on them. "I think once we put these stains under the proper eyes, we will discover Lord Peterbrooke's kidneys..."

"And intestines..."

"On them." Redeye finished.

"Thus." Chittles went on. "Redeye's rhubarb pie and Lord Peterbrooke's kidneys and intestines neatly wrapped up the case."

This was the final tipping point for Inspector Bloodstone. 

He rushed to the street and heaved his guts. After a few more moments of emptying his late breakfast, he turned to them. "Excuse my poor manners, but I didn't eat too well earlier."

"What did you have?" Redeye inquired.

"Rhubarb Pie."

Today we mourn the loss of Leonard Nmioy and honor him for his contributions!

When they played the soleful tune for Spock, thinking that he had met his death, Star Trek found one of its finest moments. For it is not the splendor of space, the battling of empires, the accumulation of wealth we will remember a person for...but what they have accomplished in their lives.

Spock was the quintessential male...embracing both the feminine and the masculine sides of life with his great intellect and deep compassion.

Embodied by Leonard Nimoy, the character became a symbol for the  New Age man who will be vastly more intelligent and logical, but also sensitive to the needs of the many.

God Bless Leonard Nimoy on his final voyage from Earth and may he find the peace and happiness in the Realms of Light where he is going.

Thank you for all the blessed years of enjoyment you have brought me and my family, my friends and all the children of this world.

Bad Hair Day, "A Samuel Light Junior Story."

Bad Hair Day

"A Samuel Light Junior Story"

John Pirillo

Approximately ten minutes after P.E., after a shower, after a four mile run, after cramps in his right leg, after Jimbo making his life a hell by shoving a cigar in his gym clothes hamper and Coach finding it, and after another four mile run and a hundred push-ups for that, Samuel was finally able to go home. 

It had been a Bad Hair Day for him.

Now he knew why the girls called it that. It meant that anything that could possibly go wrong had or would. He wasn't a pessimist by nature. But some days it seemed like the world was going to end. Or at least a reasonable approximation, if there was such a thing.

Oh and by the way Samuel is a spiritual detective. That's what his Mom calls him. The big, cuddly blonde who has raised him since he was...well, born. She always told him he was born for a purpose and as he began sprouting psychic abilities and some right scary stuff he began to believe it wasn't just for a purpose, but to scare the Holy Crap out of him.

Samuel didn't swear. Usually. He saved those spare words for when he cracked his head on the kitchen cabinet door, which was often. He was sprouting inches a lot these days. And for those times when he burned himself, which was frequently, because he usually made his own breakfasts, because Mom was running off to her day job...she had two, night and day...to keep him and her in the home that his father had built and was now being taxed so heavily that she could barely keep up with the taxes, let alone the payments for the supplies that built it. It wasn't much, but when you worked for a K-Mart or Wal-Mart, you didn't make much. She never got a degree. Never had time for it. She had him almost right after she'd met his father. Least that's what she told him, though he suspected sometimes that she was withholding a secret from him.

And yeah, he could read intentions, if not minds at times.

Right. Another one of those things his Mom called psychic abilities, but his friends called weird and crazy, and voodoo. He laughed to himself as he stuffed his gym shorts into his backpack, and headed for the gym exit.

Mister Peterson stood there at the door frowning at him, as he said good-bye to his Rat Pack; he called the kids of this period. They were his favorites. Sam knew it. He always told the other teachers, because they were smart and motivated.

"How's the throat these days?" Mister Peterson asked him as he prepared to exit.

"Uh..."

"Stay away from those stink sticks, Mister, they'll punch holes in your lungs." He was warned as he exited.

Sam didn't respond. What could he say? He had been framed! Nope. Wouldn't work. The Coach was not anything, if not stubborn. He refused to see the other side of the poker deck, the part which one had been dealt. He said it was because he grew up in Chicago where everyone had a story, but Sam suspected it was just his nature, or at least the one he had decided to fix himself on.

"Hey Sambo!" Jimbo taunted.

Sam spun around and glared at his friend, who was almost as tall as him, but built like a tank by comparison. "You framed me!"

Jimbo, his reddish hair tinted almost blonde from the hard light of approaching summer, grinned that annoying grin he always gave when he was going to start shoveling...the compost heap at him..And said. "You look good in one. Should mount you on the gymnasium wall for all the girls to ponder the meaning of why they never give that kid a chance, and then remind themselves why they don't."

"You through?"

Jimbo shrugged. "Going to Papa Maries for a malt. Wanta come."

"Okay."

Just like that all their quarrels and Jimbo's terrible jokes were forgiven. Sam never held onto anything, except some doubts about himself, which he only brought out when he sat facing his closet where the giant Knight lived.

As they walked past the admin building and then headed onto the main sidewalk fronting the two million dollar school that looked more like a two million dollar prison with all its metal doors and gates shutting off the rooms and openings, and waved at the Campus Cop, who gave them a sour look, they headed across the street, avoiding the sidewalk crossing where the cheerleaders were gathered for the bus.

"You think any of them like you?" Sam asked as they passed them.

Jimbo shrugged. "Don't really care. All the other girls at school do."

"You're so lucky."

"Son, it's not luck." Jimbo told him with a grin. "Some of us are born cockeyed crazy with powers that drive mortal men mad."

"Me!"

"Yup!" Jimbo agreed. "And some are born powerful handsome and maddeningly gorgeous to the ladies."

"You!"

"Hey! You're firing on all eighteen cylinders this afternoon."

"I don't have eighteen."

"Seems like it sometimes.

"That's because you're still working on firing up two."

Jimbo cracked into laughter, pounding Sam on the back so hard he almost fell over. "Now...that...was funny!"

As they walked he could see Papa Maries neon sign hanging over its dark front. It always seemed to be darker there than anywhere else. He could have looked into it deeper, but he didn't like fooling around with psychic powers. Mom had told him to use them wisely or they would be taken away.

How she knew that, he never asked. He trusted her in that, because the one time he had tried to open up his third eye in an older part of time, he had seen a ghost straight from Hell. He had run home screaming at the age of seven, a disillusioned and chastised runt of four feet in height, who would never doubt his Mom's wisdom again.

As they entered Papa Marie's he smelled something weird.

"Smell that?"

"Yeah." Jimbo replied, his nose wriggling from the effort of trying to block out the annoying scent.

Sam suddenly perked up. He felt, rather than saw what was happening. He threw down his back pack and ran past the tables of kids who were eating and drinking, but lost to what was going on. Jimbo was hot on his heels.

They tore into the kitchen and Papa Marie was slumped over a kitchen sink, his hands limp at his sides, his grill smoking, starting to catch on fire. Jimbo ran for a bucket in the back. They sometimes helped clean up for free food and drinks. Sam put a hand on Papa Marie. He could feel warmth, but it seemed to be cooling where he touched him.

For no particular reason his hand began to glow a bright green. 

"Holly Batman Droppings!" Sambo yelled as he saw it.

Papa Marie suddenly jerked upright, coughing and hacking, and then he wiped at his mouth and his forehead and gave Sam a peculiar look.

Sam said nothing.

No one said a thing, until the smell of burning burgers caught their attention again.

Jimbo tossed the water on the grill and then they spent the better part of their afternoon helping Papa Marie to clean up the mess.

He never spoke to Sam or Jimbo about what had happened, nor did they talk about it to each other at that time, but everyone had changed that day in some way.

But like the friends they all were, he and Sambo finished helping. Papa Marie made them super whoppers on dishes heaped with curly fries and a separate giant mug of vanilla ice cream with coke in it and everyone went home happy that day. Especially Papa Marie!

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Want to read more?

Amazon is now selling my first story in the ongoing adventures of Samuel Light Junior.

Samuel Light Junior, Spiritual Detective Chapter One: Magic Happens 

Buy it now for only 99cents!

Samuel is a normal, everyday teenager, except he hasn't a clue where his father is, or what he does. His mother has secrets. He goes to a school where there's ghosts. The girl he likes is also liked by his best friend. Yeah. Normal teenager.

Samuel's life gets more complicated when he begins seeing through the eyes of people who 

have passed away, and then later actually sees people who have passed away.

Samuel just wants to live a normal life, but for him that's going to be a life that's anything but normal, as he ventures into the world of magic, the occult and the spiritual.

To graduate from Elvis High School he not only has to overcome normal teenage angst, but also overcome mysteries and magic that would daunt the bravest of souls.

Rock and Roll the Comic Books, "A Cartoon Story."

Rock and Roll the Comic Books

"A Cartoon Story"

It was a fierce battle, and no one was going to back off. No one was going to give an inch without getting blood in return. Lots of blood.

Trouble was, it was all from his picking fingers. They hurt like someone was cutting off a piece at a time and were starting to bleed. But he was relentless, he couldn't give up, because the fate of a world depended on him.

He was the Rock and Roll King and the beautiful Princess beside him, Cartoon, was the woman of his heart and soul and he couldn't let her be swept away by the hordes of Zombie guitar players who were hungry for her body, as well as her soul.

So he kept on picking at his electric guitar, his Jimmie Hendrix Afro, flagging in the breeze of all the megawatt amps behind him and the ones behind the Zombie King, who was rocking on from the other side of the zombie horde, using the power of his rock and roll to stir them, to move them, to guide and rush them for he and Cartoon.

Johnnie had fought a lot of weird battles lately, but this had to take the cake for the most blood he'd shit.

"Oh shitzleputt!" He cursed as one of his picking fingers got so greasy from blood that he made a bad note.

That gave the zombie horde all the time they needed to reach the platform he and Cartoon were on. She took out her drum sticks, the ones he had gotten from the comic book Rock and Roll Stars and began poking at the closer ones. Each poke took out a zombie, but for every zombie she poked and annihilated into a cloud of gray and blood colored dust, came another one, just as eager as the last to take a bite of her tender flesh and anoint her into zombie hood.

"You won't win this battle, Johnnie!" Screamed the Zombie King. "My Mojo is greater than yours."

"You have no Mojo." He hollered back, staring down the monster. "Because you don't even know what it means, you son of a dog bone!"

The Zombie King snarled, revealed all twenty of his scary teeth, each one of them capped with gold and diamond studs. "Pretend you're tough, but admit it, this time I win!"

Johnnie reached into his back pocket where he kept the comic with the Rock and Roll King. Issue Number Ten, where the Rock and Roll King had a blaster for a right hand that could knock  space ship out of the sky. He hurriedly thumbed through the pages, feeling the energies grow. He was getting better at this.

Then he started to lose the energies, until Cartoon put both her hands over his and gave him that smile that would knock the socks off a space suited astronaut.

His right hand flew up, now a cartoon blaster and he began firing into the horde. Zombie parts flew into the air, their snarls continuing as their heads separated from their bodies, then there was only one left. The Zombie King.

The Zombie King put down the bone guitar he had been playing and stomped across the space of the auditorium towards them.

"I don't need hordes to finish you!"

Johnnie let the blaster hand dissolve back into his good right hand again, then pulled Cartoon against him. He felt her warmth suffusing his body for a moment, then said. "You don't have to stay with me."

"I'm not going anywhere without you. If you die, I'd rather not live!"

"But that monster won't let you die! He'll suck your flesh dry for centuries!"

"Just let him try!" She cursed, her eyes flashing with fury, then turned to join me in the battle. We raised our silver swords tipped with Twinkies. They were deadly. The only way you can slice and dice a living zombie like the Zombie King is with one of those. It may sound a bit Disney, but it's true. They hate Twinkies. It separates them from their bones, and dissolves them back into dust ands them off to LaLa Land where they have to face the karmas they've created by their horrible deeds.
Oh yes, and in case  you were wondering, not all zombies are made that way. Some choose to be that way. They're the worst and they're usually led by a scoundrel like the Zombie King. God knows I'd dissolved him a hundred times by now, but his hatred for me and humanity was so strong that he kept coming back from the dead.

Some day, when...if...I had the time, I'd  have to do some research to see why he gets away with dying so many times and coming back. Was another human re-energizing raising him, a black sorcerer type like those from Doctor Strange. Speaking of which, I'd forgot to close up my Doctor Strange back home. I just hoped Elizabeth didn't sneak in and start reading it, it might let loose a horde of different monsters for me to take out.

The Zombie King leaped to the stage I and Cartoon stood upon and raised two swords over our heads. "Which to die first. Eeny, Meeny, Miney."

Cartoon and I both swung our Twinkie swords at the same time, one beheading him, the other slicing his body from neck to abdomen.

His head clunked to the platform we stood on, making a kind of squishy sound, then his eyes looked up at us. "Oops!"

Then the head the halved skeleton all made a powder puff explosion and vanished into gray and red dust.

Cartoon and I choked on it for a moment, then took a deep breath as we leaped off the platform, which dissolved, along with all the remains of the battlefield. The local Wal-Mart store. Most of the patrons had scurried out as fast as they could when the zombies came a biting.

We exited the huge store, then hugged.

"One of these days we really gotta get a life." I told her.

"You do." She said, smiling as she raised her lips for a kiss. "Me!"

We kissed. Oh, did I tell you that I really, really love this girl. Even if she is a cartoon.
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Can't get enough of Johnny and Cartoon. Neither can I. That's why I've been writing more and more stories about them.

Here's an idea about my first story involving Cartoon and Johnny.

Johnny loves cartoons with all his heart. As a kid he falls in love with a comic book that stars a beautiful blonde named Cartoon. Now he's a grown up teen and he's just met Cartoon in a burning building. From that moment on his life becomes more and more complicated as his comic book stories take on a life of their own.

Read her and his first adventure "Shades of Gray, the Portal's Opening." Buy it now for 99 cents.

Top Ten Sherlock Holmes Portrayals

The Twist of Regret, The Oil of Tomorrow, "A Robin of the Woods Story."

The Twist of Regret, The Oil of Tomorrow

"A Robin of the Woods Story"

by John Pirillo

"It's only a bird's nest, Robin." Lady Marion told him, as she knit the sheep's wool into a blanket for her and he to lay upon during the winter months of their tree home in the Engloria Forest. Ever since he had returned from his ensorcelment by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, he had been a different man. More quiet, less boisterous. His son, Robin of the Woods, worried even more so, but she never told Robin that, because she knew how proud he was of their son, and also how proud he was of being able to take care of them. The years that had separated them had been hard on all of them.

Even the trees had suffered from his lack of attention as the Nature Elves who tended them only trusted his word and his hands upon the woods they brought nourishment and life to. Even they had wilted somewhat and refused to sprout new leaves and flowers, thus depriving the honey bees of their precious nectar, and the birds and bears of their pollen and  honey.

"Yes. But look how well constructed it is, Mary." He told her,  his thick beard rubbing against her shoulder blade from behind as he raised his trophy for her eyes to see.

She examined it, but saw nothing unusual to remark about, so instead continued knitting.

Finally, he rose from beside her and frowned. "We will not be found so easily the next time, nor roused from our real homes!"

There was the crux of his problem. Worry. And not that it wasn't valid, but that he felt less than a man because they had been thrown out of their ancestral homes to live in Sherwood Forest, then even thrown from that as well by the evil magics of the Sheriff.

"Robin. We need to talk." She told him.

She put her knitting down, then patted the wood floor beside her. Their new home was barren of furniture, as it was the fifth time they had been forced to retreat from the ever advancing forces of King John and the meddlesome Sheriff.

He sat down, but she could tell he wasn't in a mood to listen. So you used the only magic she knew upon him. She kissed him on the lips.

It usually did t he trick and after their years and troubles together, he still loved her as much as she him. They were inseparable and she was quite sure had he truly died, she would have felt it and withered away from the loss, as much as the trees had from his touch.

"I love you so much." He whispered into her right ear, then blew softly, tickling her.

She giggled and shove him gently back. "When are you going to shave that nasty thing from your face."

"Yes, father. When?" Robin of the Woods demanded cheerfully, as he ducked through the opening into their living room, where they sat and then dropped to a squat facing them. He had his long bow held in one hand and a quiver of fresh arrows over his broad shoulders.

Robin gazed at his son with so much love and urgency, it hurt him. He had missed some of the best years of the lad's life, and he had no intentions of ever doing such again.

"Any word?"

Robin of the Woods shook his head, then loosened his grip on his long bow, letting it cock against the wall, and his bow to slide from his shoulder next to it. He shrugged his jerkin on a bit tighter and gripped his knees, placing his chin on them to watch them.

"Merlin says they are plotting."

"They are always plotting. Tell me something I don't know." Robin growled angrily.

Mary touched Robin lightly on his arm and he relaxed. He was so high strung these days. "What your father meant to say..." She looked into his eyes as she spoke. "Is that we were hoping for news of a different kind."

"And you will have it." Robin of the Woods told them, rising to his feet again, grabbing his long bow and quiver. "As soon as I do. I love you father. Mom!" He said with a nod to both, then exited.

"You've chased him away again with your anger, Robin!" She scolded Robin.

He sighed, then shook his head. "I just don't seem to be able to do anything right anymore."

"No, that's not true! I won't hear you admit such to your men either. They hate it when you do that. You are like a god to them."

"Even gods can make mistakes." Robin sighed.

"Yes, and so you must do better than that." She reminded him.

He gave her a quick look, then leaped to his feet. He stretched. "I think it's time I went outside for a little walk."

"He needs you more than ever, you know." Lady Marion called after Robin as he exited.

"And I him." Robin admitted.

Robin of the Woods sat cross-legged on a thick branch overlooking their camp below. His long hair was banded into a pony tail, to keep it from falling into his eyes. He smiled as  he watched Little John, Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett about a large fire, singing an ancient lullaby as their wives watched from the opposite side of the fire with their babies in their arms.

"It's something I treasure more than gold." Robin said as he settled beside Robin of the Woods.

"Aye. And I." Robin of the Woods admitted. "Every night I come out here to listen to them tell their tales, recall their ancient battles, remember..."

Robin of the Woods stopped, embarrassed.

Robin put a hand on his son's shoulder and gripped it firmly. "I missed them as much as they I. And I especially missed you, son."

Robin of the Woods looked at him. "Every night you were gone I did not give up hoping I would find you, rescue you. But every night I failed. I was ready to leave the woods forever at one point, forsaking everything that I loved and believed in."

"And yet you did not."

"No. Without Merlin's friendship it might have been different"

Robin nodded. "Merlin is a great friend to us all. But even he would say that your best friend is not him, or me, but your own soul, your own heart, your own willingness to do what is right, my son."

Robin of the Woods smiled at his father. Even though imprisoned for years and tortured, his spirit was strong, his eyes sharp and his arm still as strong as the thews of a small dragon. He felt such joy at the presence of his father at that moment, he thought he might explode. How could any son deserve such a good man, someone so willing to give up everything in life to preserve the life of those in need.

Robin of the Woods looked at him and he felt such love for his father and his father for him, that neither spoke for hours, but sat there humbly next to each other, enjoying the sanctity of their closeness and good spirited hearts.

The war for freedom in the woods and the land was far from over, but the battle to renew their friendship and love was being won.