Free Music City Macabre: The Low Lying Lands Saga: Vol. 1 by Bob Williams

the staples hurt like a son of a bitch. My numerous other cuts and abrasions would heal. I stayed around for a few minutes and finished up with Doc West, but eventually I had to go. He handed me several different bottles of meds, some bandages, and a few medical supplies along with a long piece of paper, presumably instructions. I wanted to take all the meds now.
    “You’re not a young man anymore, Prescott. I can’t stress enough that what you’ve done to your body is traumatic. Simply put, you are not physically able to fight right now.” He sounded like he was pleading. This is getting weird so I’m checking myself out.
    “Listen Doc, I appreciate you fixing me up.”
    “You’re hardly fixed up.”
    “Fine, whatever. I’m doing this. It’s all about mind over matter.” I stepped in closer. “It’s about will. Sheer will and I do have that. Thanks.”
    “Take the pills. Change the bandages. At least don’t kill yourself being negligent.”
    I left the Med Center and headed to the hanger to get the Comanche. There would be a scar or two, or three. Most notably on my heart. At some point I will have to talk to Emily. She deserves to hear from me a one final time.

WHILST BULLETS FLEW AT THE 88
    Nashville, TN
    Kendrick Kade sat at his desk in what used to be the main office of what used to be the Hard Rock Cafe Nashville. He wasn’t doing anything in particular, just waiting. It was terribly difficult to find good help these days! He had told the Freaks to get the evening’s events prepared, then come and retrieve him.
    He felt as if he’d been waiting for several hours. Hours? Why should he even be worrying about time? This still new and exciting world that had been given to him since The Descent was nothing but an endless, timeless playground of pure joy. Sometimes, he would sit back with his feet up on his desk just thinking about all the pain and suffering he’d inflicted in two short years. But pondering the chaos and destruction he could impose on this godforsaken city for the rest of his natural born life, and possibly afterwards, now that was exciting. “Somebody has to pay for Jason Aldean, Goddamnit,” he’d say on occasion, to some terrified regular, “Might as well be you!” Then he’d beat them to death with a baseball bat. Kade never knew what way he was going to kill them until he was in the moment. He liked to keep it real like that. He liked the feeling of keeping his faithful Freak followers in suspense.
    “Where are you?” he screamed and pounded his desk. “I’m reeeaaady!”
    So. Fucking. Hard. To. Find. Good. Help. These. Days. He stood up and took a few steps back, knocking his chair to the ground. It was one of those old chairs the Hard Rock used in the dining area. Apparently when the Collapse occurred and everything went apeshit there was a three alarm need for awesome office chairs! The ones with fucking wheels so you could roll around the office while you were thinking and shit. Why couldn’t he have a damn LEATHER office chair with WHEELS? He picked up his chair and smashed it into splinters over his very nice solid wood desk.
    Right around that time, Kade’s personal assistant Jaeger entered the office.
    “We’re ready for you, Boss,” he said timidly.
    “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Is Ortiz ready?”
    “Yes, Sir. Ortiz is ready and waiting for you.”
    “He is, is he? Waiting...on me, Jaeger?”
    Before the Freak could answer, Kade picked up the sharpest piece from the busted chair and ran it straight through Jaeger’s right eye. The squishing, popping noise was a Mozart symphony to his ears.
    Kade whispered softly, “Don’t go just yet, asshole. I want you to see this.” He pulled the stick slowly from the eye socket, and there, impaled on the end, was the punctured eye of his soon to be dead associate. He took the eye off the stick and ate it. “Maybe I’ll tell Ortiz I was eating and that caused me to fall a little behind schedule.” What set