Only the Bonely

by Reffster

Night. Always a time to be alive. The stars twinkling. The crickets chirping. Every man, woman and child tucked away in bed, fast asleep.

The perfect time to work the boneyards.

She had a system. It was efficient. Perfect, really. Because no one expected a woman to go pilfering through piles of bones. A man, maybe—men were sick; it was expected of them. But women? No. And if they caught her, she could easily play all innocent. Bat her eyelashes and shoot them a smile. It always worked. She'd done it before. She'd do it again.

Her bag was full of femurs, skulls, shoulder blades. And all kinds of little ones, too: full toes and fingers, individual knuckles.

If someone were to take a peek inside they'd be horrified by what they saw. Because there was something else in there. Something nobody would want to see.

And she'd have to take care of them if they caught on. She'd done that before, too.

She was digging out a sweet-looking pelvis when a spotlight lit her up. She hissed through her teeth and turned to see someone headed her way—couldn't tell much, because the light had them backlit. They were just a shadow.

She realized what had happened here. She'd gotten too cocky. "Fuck you, Mad Mike Marsbergen," she muttered to herself and prepared for war.

In a single, fluid motion she ripped the pelvis out of its grave, rolled into the shadows cast by a small hillock of broken ribs and tossed it off to the left of the advancing figure. His head turned to investigate the resulting clatter and she took the opportunity to sprint in a silent, crouched run to his right, drawing her Femur 4000 Osseo-crossbone from its back holster as she went.

The figure crouched over the pelvis and after a brief inspection, placed it into a bag of his own. So, she thought, diving behind a pile of knuckles, he's collecting as well as hunting. She notched a wickedly barbed bone-tipped bolt into the crossbone. Here's another bone for your collection, gristle-head. She took careful aim and fired.

The bolt flew straight and with a satisfying thunk, hit the intruder in the centre of the back. He grunted, in surprise or pain, and she waited expectantly for him to fall. Instead, he turned slowly, raised his arm and pointed directly at her. With his direction, the spotlight found her again. Dazzled, she looked away in a desperate attempt to retain her night vision.

The figure's footsteps crunched on bone fragments as he advanced towards her. The pace was deliberate, relentless and somehow mocking. Every step seemed to say, I'm not afraid of you, you are nothing to fear, you are nothing at all.

She fumbled with the crossbone, desperately trying to load another bolt. Finally her clumsy figures slotted one home, but as she raised the weapon there was an ear-splitting crack and it was torn from her grasp.

Stunned, she fell backwards. She watched in horror as the figure entered the beam cast by the spotlight. She could not believe her eyes. It couldn't be him. She'd assumed the figure was one of MadMike's henchmen, some brainless muscle that she could charm or outwit or kill, or possibly all three. But this was no henchman. This was the man himself. Emineminem. Marsbergen. The Lord of the Boneyard.

Desperately, she tried to pull herself together. She was a warrior and a scientist, not some pathetic Survivor reject. Well, unless it was from season 4,247. That had been a kick-ass season. She got to her feet and glared at the bastard. Clad from head to toe in a skin-tight black lycra skeleton suit, with interlocking bone armour, he was not an inviting sight. In one hand he held her crossbone and in the other a long whip - she now understood how she had been disarmed.

He grinned at her. "Maxilla, my dear. So lovely to see you. What brings you to my boneyard at this late hour?"

She raised her chin, defiantly. "I'm hunting. Not that it's any of your concern."

"Everything that happens in the boneyard is my concern, my dear. The giveaway is in the title - Lord of the Boneyard. It's particularly my concern when I'm being shot with a crossbone. Although I have to say that if that's the best you can do, it don't impress me much."

"My apologies. I was after a warthog and you happened along. It was an easy mistake to make."

Marsbergen threw back his head and roared with laughter. It was so genuine and infectious that Maxilla began to smile, despite her best efforts to resist. Then, with shocking suddenness, the laughter stopped and the whip cracked. Fire burned across her cheek and she was flung to the ground. She looked up to find the Lord of the Boneyard towering over her.

"I do so love a sense of humour," he commented, mildly. "But I love cowering terror and absolute, quaking submission even more." He raised the whip. "Let's work on those, shall we?"

"Wait!" she cried, desperately. "Wait until I show you what I found. You won't believe it."

Marsbergen sighed. "You'd better not be wasting my valuable whipping time, young lady. Alright, where is this mystery item?"

"In my bag." She felt sick to the pit of her stomach. Letting Marsbergen know she had the artefact was a little like letting a rabid elephant know you had a peanut. But to stand any chance of getting away, she had to distract the bastard somehow. There was no other way.

"Fine. You may show me whatever this thing is, but try anything and you lose an eye. Reach into your bag, slowly."

Maxilla's fingers fumbled through the assorted bones that half-filled her bag, until she located the object. Slowly, she held it up into the harsh glare of the spotlight.

Marsbergen's eyes widened. "No," he breathed. "It can't be. It can't possibly be. I've searched for years. It's a myth."

Maxilla waggled the object invitingly. "It's no myth. It took me years, but I found it."

Slowly, Marsbergen reached for it. His eyes were glazed and a glistening trail of drool ran from the corner of his mouth. "I must have it. Give it to me."

Just as his fingertips brushed the object, his face rapt with awe, Maxilla arched her back and delivered a tremendous full body kick to Marsbergen's crotch. For a few momentous seconds, nothing happened. Then his glazed eyes widened slightly, the whip and her crossbow fell from his grasp, he uttered a single high-pitched squeak and then toppled over like a tree.

Maxilla was up in an instant. She stuffed the object back into her bag, retrieved the pelvis from Marsbergen's, snatched up her crossbone and fired at the spotlight as she broke into a run. She was gratified to hear the sound of glass breaking and to be enveloped once again in welcoming darkness.

Confused shouts could be heard from the direction of the spotlight, while a high pitched keening pierced the night. It took her a moment to realise it was coming from MadMike. Her foot ached from the impact of the kick, so she could only begin to imagine the pain he must be in. She stifled a giggle and put all of her effort into running and all of her attention into weaving between the shadowy heaps and windrows of bones that lay between her and escape.

Through the cool night air, the sounds of pursuit could clearly be heard from behind her. But on a dark night, with a head start and a body full of adrenaline, Maxilla knew there was nobody in New Bonedonia who was a match for her. Gradually the sounds of pursuit faded and eventually even Marsbergen's wailing could no longer be heard.

****

The baying of the bonehounds tore asunder the crisp, cold dawn air. Once they picked up Maxilla's scent, it was only a matter of minutes before they found the pit. Walking awkwardly bowlegged and clutching a bag of ice to his crotch, it took somewhat longer for MadMike Marsbergen to arrive.

"Show me," he snarled to the houndmaster. The trembling lackey complied, indicating the object lying at the bottom of the pit. Marsbergen squinted at it but couldn't discern any detail in the dim morning light. Gingerly, he climbed down.

He drew in a sharp intake of breath, his pain momentarily forgotten. Lying in the dirt at the base of the pit was a corpse. Not so surprising in a boneyard, perhaps. But this corpse was more than mere bones. This corpse had flesh. Leathery, desiccated, parchment-like flesh, but flesh nonetheless.

How long has it been since bodies were buried without removing the flesh first? he wondered. Three, four thousand years? Not since the legendary Zombie Wars of antiquity had mankind risked burying their dead without first stripping every ounce of meat from them. The ancients had learned the hard way that bone was the only substance you could trust.

There could be no doubt whose corpse this was. The features had been almost as weathered in life as they were in death. Just as there was no doubt as to who had made the hole in its chest and stolen its heart. Maxilla, you're messing with unholy forces beyond your control or comprehension. He clenched his fists. That's my job.

****

Maxilla slotted the pelvis into place, attached it with cartilage and stood back to admire her handiwork. It was so very nearly done. After all these years, today was the day. Her quest would be completed and true power would be hers.

She retrieved the heart from her bag and with hands that trembled slightly, carefully placed the shrivelled organ into the chest cavity of the glistening, white skeleton. Then, barely daring to breathe, she stepped back.

She waited, breathlessly. Nothing happened.

Excitement fading, her shoulders slumped. Where had she gone wrong? Despondently, she reached out to retrieve the heart but just as her fingers were about to enclose it, a skeletal hand whipped up and grasped her wrist in a vice-like grip. The empty eye sockets blazed with a fiery red light and a voice as dry as the sands of time rasped at her.

"Hands off, lady."

****

Outside Maxilla's lair, the Lord of the Boneyard and fifty or so of his henchmen had gathered. He raised his EasySpeak Malleus Megabone and called to her.

"Maxilla! We know you're in there. We know you have the heart. Bring it to me. Only the Lord of Bones has the ability to control such power. Bring it to me and I promise we will kill you quickly. That's the best offer you're going to get."

Without amplification, Maxilla's voice only carried faintly to them. "Here's my counteroffer. Bite me, asshole."

Then, to Marsbergen's surprise, the door to the lair opened. Something stirred inside.

And then something stepped out into the sunlight. Something with no flesh. No flesh, that is, except for a heart beating in an otherwise empty chest cavity. Something made of bones that glistened like day old maggots in the sun. Something with eyes that glowed red like the fires of hell. Something that was dead and yet terrifyingly alive. Something wearing a bone-white cowboy hat.

Marsbergen took an involuntary step backwards. Maxilla, what have you done?

Maxilla followed her creation into the sunlight. "Behold!" she cried. "Behold what I have wrought and tremble in fear! It lives again! The Chuck! The Chuck of the Norris!"

The creature tipped its hat to Marsbergen and his awed crowd of minions.

Maxilla laughed in delight. "Your time has come to an end, Marsbergen. Now I will be the mistress of the boneyard. Submit! Submit to my will or die at the hands of the Chuck!"

Marsbergen swallowed down his fear and anger. "Steady," he snarled at his men, sensing their uncertainty. "There is but one creature and we are many. Boldness can still win this day for us. Attack!"

The Chuck watched the surging tide of bone-wielding men racing towards it. Almost by definition, a skull is already baring its teeth but somehow the Chuck managed to bare them some more.

Moving with a fluid grace that was scarcely believable, it evaded the swing of every clumsy bone club and the bolt of every hastily fired crossbone. And as the body ducked and wove, the hands and legs were constantly in motion: striking, stabbing, slashing and slaying. For every attacker that fell, a new one took their place but undaunted, the Chuck fought on.

Hopelessly outmatched, the remaining few minions finally broke and ran for their very lives.

Maxilla and MadMike regarded each other across the body-strewn battleground, silent now but for the moans of the wounded. The bloodstained Chuck stood motionless between the two.

"Submit!" cried Maxilla again. "None can stand before me, for I command the Chuck!"

The silence was broken by a dry, rasping cackle. A cackle which became a maniacal laugh. It took both Maxilla and Marsbergen a moment to realise it was coming from the Chuck.

"You command the Chuck?" scoffed the creature. "I don't think so."

"Of course I command you!" Maxilla stamped her foot in rage. "I created you!"

The Chuck straightened its hat. "Lady, the only thing you're creating is a monumental pain in my bony ass. The legend that I am was created by nobody but me."

"The creature is right," cried Marsbergen. "You are not worthy to control such greatness. I, the Lord of the Boneyard will command the Chuck!"

The Chuck turned to him. "You can try sunshine, but no lycra-clad freak is giving me orders. You and I may both be wearing bones, but the difference is, they look good on me. Also, you seem to think you're some sort of a bad-ass-" the Chuck detached one of its own ribs, and with a casual flick of the wrist sent it arrowing towards Marsbergen's chest, where with pinpoint accuracy it penetrated a gap in his bone armour and punctured a lung, "-but my ass is the baddest ass there is."

Marsbergen collapsed in a wheezing heap and the Chuck turned its attention to Maxilla. "As for you little lady, I'm gonna have to kill you too. But since you're the one who brought me back, I'm prepared to give you a chance." It picked up one of the fallen minion's clubs and tossed it to her. "It's not much of a chance, but I can't have it said that the Chuck killed a defenceless lady." And without further ado, it attacked.

Maxilla fell back before the furious volley of punches and kicks. She desperately ducked and parried, using every ounce of her hard-won skill to stay alive. The Chuck was tireless but she was not, and gradually her defences began to crack. Bruised and bleeding from a dozen wounds, she stumbled backwards until her legs tangled with an unexpected obstacle and she fell full length onto her back.

The Chuck grinned down at her. "Lady, you've got some moves. But now it's time to die." It raised its skeletal hand and Maxilla closed her eyes and braced for the killing blow. There was a deafening crack and she waited for the explosion of pain to follow. It didn't come. Cautiously, she opened her eyes.

The Chuck still stood above her, its arm still raised, but the red light of its eyes was dying away. A sudden gust blew across the battlefield, and Maxilla watched in disbelief as the undead killing machine simply disintegrated and blew away on the wind.

Blinking in confusion, she sat up and tried to gather her wits. The obstacle she had fallen over gave a rattling laugh, and with a start she realised it was the Lord of the Boneyard. He was clearly not long for this world. But he grinned a blood-flecked grin at her and held up his whip. Wrapped in the end was the shrivelled heart of the Chuck.

"You get your wish, Maxilla," he gasped. "You are now the Mistress of the Boneyard. But let this be a lesson to you. Meddle not with the powers of flesh long past. Trust in bone." He took a long, shuddering breath. "And when you get back to the boneyard, take the Van Damme heart I've got stashed in the fridge and throw the bloody thing away."