Earth Tactics Advance

Earth Tactics Advance

Volume 1

By Scottie Futch

Copyright 2017 Scottie Futch

Smashwords Edition

License Note: This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Please Note: This story is part of a larger project known as Project Scott. It is a work of humor and parody designed to entertain. If you dislike fun in general, then this tale is not for you.

Any character found engaging in sexual actions within the confines of this story is at least eighteen years of age or older. They are also quite fortunate, and I freely admit that I am jealous of their social success.

Table of Contents

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

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Chapter 1

The world and all those whom reside within it had continued on in its normal manner since time immemorial. The disparate members of humanity lived their lives by the habits of their cultures and climate.

In some parts of the world people lived like their ancestors did over one thousand years ago, elsewhere people abandoned the old ways and reached for the stars. While some might deny the evidence, men had even stepped foot on the moon. Forever out of reach to ancient humanity who looked up at the sky, the lunar surface was no mystery to modern man. It seemed that nothing could stop the forward march of human technological progress.

Just as technology differed, so did the lifestyles of humanity. Many were the customs and lifestyles of the peoples of the Earth. Some enjoyed their lives more than others. They spend their time joyfully amongst their friends and family. Whether they lived simply or with great affluence, it did not matter. They enjoyed their lives to the fullest.

However, there were far more people who did not enjoy life as much as they might wish. For some, the day to day grind of living can be seen as a farcical example of how life likes to take a supremely foul shit atop their hopes and dreams.

The stench of this affront to human dignity, a concept known as modern life, could only be washed away by the most potent of rain storms. The foulness clung heavily to all that it was flung upon.

A blistering series of curses echoed through the air on a rural North Carolina highway. Cows in a nearby field glanced over toward the source of those foul sentiments while they chewed on their grass and enjoyed their lives. One might wonder why a creature who spent all of its time eating and shitting before being loaded up for slaughter might be having a better day than the one who cursed.

Ignorance was bliss, the cow knew nothing of the world except for the quality of its meal and the extent of its fenced in living area. Sadly, a man did not always have that luxury. Sometimes a man knew too much, or thought that he did.

Today was not a good day, not for Scott Keen. His girlfriend had left him for another woman. He was late for class due to the bullshit surrounding the fact that his girlfriend had left him for said woman. The dick professor banished him amid the laughter of his so-called peers. On top of all of that, his shitty little scooter decided to crap out on him halfway home. Stranded, bereft of both well-endowed girlfriend and education, he could only rail at the heavens for a moment.

This shit, seriously. What else is gonna happen today?! He stared defiantly up at the clear blue sky, his fist raised up confidently to emphasize his point.

The heavens responded by unleashing a powerful thunderclap followed by a sudden torrential downpour. It was as though god chose that very moment to take an epic piss on him to cap off his day.

Fuck! snarled Scott as he threw his hands over his face and tried to sneeze out the water that ran down his nose. The rain fell in fat, heavy, drops, but it felt and looked more like sheets of oppressive liquid that were meant to drown him.

He gripped the handlebars of his scooter and started pushing as the rain beat heavily down upon him. There was a gas station up ahead. It was a few miles away still, but it was a straight shot. He knew the place well, as he had stopped there for gas often in the past.

Once he arrived, he would dry out a little and try to see what was wrong with his scooter this time. There always seemed to be something wrong with the thing. He bought it new, and chose to be damned proud of himself at the time. Less than a year later it broke down, and continued to do so once every few months. If anything it was overdue for another round of siphoning off what little money he had squirreled away.

After a good two hours of dealing with the heavy downpour, Scott managed to push his scooter under the shelter that covered the gas pumps. As soon as he did so, the rain began to let up, and the oppressive storm clouds began to disperse. It was not long before a magnificent, perhaps even glorious, rainbow appeared in the sky overheard. Birds flew lazily through the sky. All seemed perfectly right with the world.

Scott glared at the beautifully hateful rainbow bastard for a moment then sighed loudly. It’s like the world decided to royally screw me over today for some reason.

Soaking wet, and as angry as a badger with irritable bowel syndrome, he slogged over to the door to the convenience store. He stood before it a moment then sighed. At least he could get a sandwich, or something. This particular store also provided a little side-grill where they made hotdogs and barbecue sandwiches, another reason that he stopped by frequently.

He opened the door and headed inside. At first there was nothing strange about the quiet atmosphere inside of the store. There were usually only a few people milling around at this time of day. It was not yet time for the lunch rush that would cause the small grill area to become an overflowing sea of hungry people with little patience, though he was cutting it close.

Scott thought to go get a drink first and turned down the next aisle so that he could snag one from the coolers at the back of the store. He stopped cold, however, when he looked down and saw someone lying on the ground. It was Gladys, the cashier who also worked the grill. She typically worked alone at this time of day, but another cashier should be along soon for the lunch rush.

Normally, the lack of a second cashier would be the strangest thing about the eerily quiet store. However, what Scott saw on the floor far exceeded the norm. Gladys had been brutally murdered. Throat torn out, and stomach ripped open, it looked as though she'd been horribly mauled by a wild animal. Strangely, there was little blood coming from her wounds.

Shit! Gladys! Scott rushed forward and knelt to check her. Maybe this was some sort of prank? That would explain the lack of blood. Who, or what, could have done this to someone like her? Gladys was well-liked by the folks who came by the store to order from the grill.

Concern, and growing anger, clouded his vision briefly as he lightly pressed his fingers to her neck to check for a pulse. It was ludicrous to believe that she was still alive, but he did want to check. The moment that his fingers touched her cold dead skin, her eyes snapped open.

Scott should have been happy to see that she was alive, but what he saw scared the hell out of him. Her eyes were wrong, inhuman. The irises were a golden-amber color, like a wolf, and the sclera of her eyes were a bright red color. The pupils were narrow slits like a serpent, but widened a little as her eyes snapped toward him.

Meat! snarled Gladys before lunging upward toward Scott. He instinctively hurled himself backward and narrowly avoided having his throat ripped out by her jagged teeth. Her mouth now bore teeth much like those of a shark.

Gladys flopped over and rose up on all-fours like a dog. Meat! she snarled before she shambled forward.

Scott rapidly scooted back on his ass kicking against the floor with his feet in a desperate bid to escape the insane shark-toothed monstrosity before him. He pulled items off of shelves in the process, and then knocked over the end-cap display that was loaded down with cans of beans.

Gladys was knocked about the head with dozens of cans, and to Scott’s great surprise she was temporarily distracted. He managed to get to his feet during the confusion, and made a mad dash for the door.

Rather, he tried to do so but something even more terrifying occurred. He found that he could not move. Suddenly, a blaring sound blasted out from unseen source. It rapidly became something akin to a heavy metal guitar solo mixed with electronic dance music. While the music played, and he remained frozen, a bright blue light washed over him from somewhere behind him. The light continued outward for a good distance. Through the door glass he could see that it stopped a short distance beyond the gas pumps and seemed to be in a semi-circular shape.

A strong masculine voice reminiscent of a movie announcer cried out, Scott Keen versus Gladys the Ghoul! Fight-o!

He heard a loud moan from behind him followed by the sound of something being dragged across the floor. It was accompanied by the clatter of metal striking metal as the cans were knocked against something that he could not see.

The sound of Gladys' movement stopped. Scott soon regained his ability to move and he instinctively tried to run forward. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, and another sort of liquid threatened to run down his leg. Unfortunately, he was only able to take a single full-length stride before he froze in place once more.

Immediately afterward, he heard the sound of movement once more. Gladys crawled ever closer while he was frozen in place. He found that he could speak despite the fact that his body was frozen. God dammit! What the hell!

Through some unknown mechanism, he soon discovered that his body was once again capable of movement. He took another full-stride toward the door. Once again taking that step ended with his paralysis. At the current rate of speed, he would need to take three more steps to reach the door.

A hungry snarl from behind him signaled that Gladys was once more on the move. He could not even turn his head to see how far away she was.

Unable to do anything in the ridiculous situation that he was in, Scott kept moving toward the door at every opportunity. He managed to reach it after three more rounds of paralysis. It became obvious that both he and Gladys were only able to move when the other could not.

Once his turn came around again he snatched the door open just in time to see someone running down the road with three people chasing after them. While Gladys moved toward him, since opening the door had counted as a turn, he watched as a blue light flared outward from the ghouls and envelope the fat man that they chased.

Scott moved through the door and it closed behind him. He could not hear Gladys move, but he knew that she had to be taking her turn. He watched the fat man take a small step forward while the ghouls behind him each moved forward at twice his rate of speed.

Once it was his turn to move once more, Scott took a hard step toward the left without turning around. That allowed him to see the fat man moving in his own dance with death.

Scott took five side-step turns occurred before the inevitable happened. The fat man was snatched back by the shirt, and the shark-like teeth of his pursuers tore into his flesh.

The fuck! exclaimed Scott in surprise as the slow-motion nature of the turn-based movements gave way to frantic stop-motion struggling between the man and the ones who tore into his flesh. The blue field of light surrounding them fell not long after the man was brought down.

A growl beside Scott told him that the few turns that had passed while he tried to escape were enough for Gladys to reach her feet and open the door.

The fat man screamed for help. Gladys screamed out in hunger. The three people chowing down on the fat man looked up, but did not leave their feast. They had frozen in place once more. Scott took an exaggerated step to his left to further distance himself from Gladys, and watched as the fat man feebly struggled to escape from the frozen monsters that gripped him tight. After a brief few seconds of struggle, he froze up and the ghouls began to tear into him once more. One turn later, the blue light disappeared from the fat man's area. The ghouls looked around and eyed Scott for a moment, but then turned back to their meal and continued to gorge themselves.

A loud moan reminded Scott that he would share that poor bastard's fate if he did not escape from Gladys. He had to get out of the area, and fast. The term fast was relative, of course. He could only take one step at a time.

Scott moved toward the blue light, hoping against hope that if he could reach it he would be able to escape whatever the hell was happening. There was no way he would survive if he had to move one step at a time. Even with the ground that he had made against Gladys, she would soon catch up. She did not seem to be able to move as fast as the ghouls that chased the fat man, but he could not trust that suspicion.

He moved as quickly as he could toward the edge of the area, but to his horror there came a time when he felt an incredible sense of exhaustion overtake his body. When it happened, Gladys was able to move twice before he was able to move again. The blue light was close, but Gladys was getting closer. Each time he took a step, the exhaustion returned and Gladys took two steps toward him before he could move again.

She was three steps away before he reached the edge of the blue light, and one step away before he crossed through it. For a brief moment he did not realize that fact that he could move freely. Escaping the blue light ended the stop-motion horror show. However, he knew better than to stay where he was.

His scooter was fucked worse than he was, so Scott was forced to run off toward the hill on the other side of the store. Of course, actual running was out of the question. He was exhausted for reasons that he did not understand. All he could do was stagger away. Whatever was happening was beyond anything he had ever dealt with before. At the moment saving his ass was the priority. He could worry about what was going on later.

After he staggered for a few seconds, the exhaustion lifted a little and he trotted over to the hill as quickly as he could before the exhaustion returned.

Slowly, due to the sense of exhaustion, he began to make his way up the side of the hill. He used the young pine trees growing there, saplings really, as hand-holds to help him make it up the somewhat steep terrain. Scott could not spare a moment to look back to see what Gladys was doing. He needed to focus all of his waning strength on pulling himself up the steep hill.

Halfway up, he heard a growl from down below. He glanced down and saw Gladys attempt to climb up after him. He breathed a sigh of relief when she fell down and hit the ground below. He had been right. She could probably run at a hard jogging pace like the others when she was not inside that blue field, but she was clumsy.

However, she was also tenacious. She righted herself and started up after him again. He reached one-third of the way from the top before the thing he feared most happened once more. The blue light flared out and encompassed him once more.

Suddenly, everything became more difficult for him. If he tried to climb up, he immediately froze in place and Gladys got a free turn. Luckily, she was a terrible climber.

After a few attempts at climbing, Scott stopped and did nothing. He wanted to test something that he had come to suspect. A few seconds later, about ten or so, Gladys began to move. However, he did not freeze up. A sudden realization swept through him, he only froze up when he moved. If he waited a moment without moving, he would lose his turn. Yet, he was able to move in place a little without it being a problem.

The weakness passed after a few turns passed. Scott watched Gladys fall down once more, before he tried to climb up the hill again. This time he was able to move upward the equivalent of about one step before he froze in place. The exhaustion did not return, and when it was his turn again, he climbed up another full-step.

Twelve turns later, Scott crawled onto the top of the hill and panted a little. After a few steps he had to start the recovery process over again, and now he was exhausted after the climb. He looked down and saw that Gladys had fallen once more. This time it looked like she broke her arm in the process, as it now hung limply at her side. Uncertain what else to do, he decided to kneel there and rest for a few turns in the hopes that he would regain enough stamina to walk out of the weird blue field of energy that caused the problems that he now faced.

A few turns passed and took the weakness with it. He rose to his feet, but did nothing more. Scott stood there a moment while he watched Gladys carefully. He was partially hidden by the older trees at the top of the hill, so he took that time to consider what he needed to do. Where did he go? Was it like this everywhere?

Once he felt like he was fully rested he took another step and left the blue field. There was only one place to go, his house. It was probably the safest location nearby since it was made of concrete and mortar instead of thin wood and vinyl. He had gotten a good deal on the rent since it used to be owned by a well-heeled meth dealer who was paranoid about home security.

While he thought about his options he noticed something even more disturbing than half-eaten people with shark-teeth chasing after various members of humanity. Gladys’ supposedly broken arm shimmered slightly and then began to move around as though nothing had ever happened to it.

The hell? That’s just… He did not know what to call that, but it wasn’t right. What the hell was going on today?

It did not matter, he did not have time to waste on idle thoughts. He needed to do something, or he would die just like the poor fat bastard. Scott glanced at the road beyond the convenience store. He could see the remnants of the battle before.

He looked at the leftover parts of the fatty then made a face. It was not because he disliked fat people. He could use a bit more exercise himself, if he was honest about it. No, he made a face because the uneaten remnants of the dead man chose that moment to struggle to its feet. It was not long before all four of the ghouls began to move toward his location at a steady jogging pace.

Shit! Gotta go. He turned and ran to the other side of the hill. Just beyond the hill was a short gap with a bridge, and then a continuous hilly area where various well-off people lived. There was a house on the far side of the hill in the distance, and he figured it would be a good place to find help for now.

However, it was not long before he felt exhaustion setting in once more. Scott was forced to stop and take a moment to rest. He panted hard, even felt like vomiting a little. Damn, I know I'm out of shape, but this is ridiculous! He knew that he could run farther and faster than he did, but for some reason it was like he had been rendered feeble since the weird shit had begun.

Scott began a short series of hard walks and occasional rests. He soon found that if he just walked at a normal pace, he would be able to travel a little farther before he needed to rest. Running, however, tired him out at a blisteringly fast pace.

As soon as he got within three-rounds of walking distance from the house, a window on the second floor shattered loudly. Someone fell out and dropped heavily to the ground. Scott kept moving forward, whoever that was either needed help, or he needed to get past them.

Before he took more than five steps, a new horror appeared before him. From out of that same second floor window a true monster emerged. It looked to be about the size of a basketball, and it had several tentacles. It floated in the air, suspended by some unknown mechanism.

Scott stopped cold for a moment. Shark-toothed hotdog vendors were one thing. This creature was flat out impossible.

He saw the person on the ground struggle to get up, but they could not. They cried out incoherently, and the eyeball took notice. It sluggishly floated down toward the person crying on the ground then casually began to wrap its tentacles around them. The eyeball rolled back to reveal a massive mouth with large triangular teeth.

Scott gasped in horror then took a step to the right. He turned away from the grisly sight of a flying eyeball eating someone as they cried and moaned. He could not know if they were normal like him, or if they were like Gladys. It did not matter. He did not want to see that, and he had no intention of going to that house now.

He continued off to the right and did not look back. However, he could hear the loud crunching of bones and the feeble screams of the dying. Thankfully, the eyeball either did not see well, or he had been ignored in favor of the closer meal.

Panicked and out of breath, Scott slid down the side of the hill then headed toward the river. If he was lucky he could get to the bridge and cross over to the other side. He was not that far from home, only a few miles. Though, that seemed like a much greater distance than normal.

After sliding down the hill, he reached the river bank and started forward at a steady jog. Soon, he stopped for a rest. Scott inwardly cursed his body and whatever bizarre thing it was that caused him to become out of breath after only a short few steps when jogging.

He had never been the athletic type. He was not in horrible shape, but he never really focused on body maintenance. Since the world went mad, he had done the most running that he had done since high school. He expected to tire easy, but the situation still made no sense. Yesterday he walked around the local mall for hours and never had this problem. Now it was like he had become an elderly man with late-stage emphysema.

The water in his shoes, a left over from the rain storm, had already started to rub his feet raw. His body was chaffing in various locations, and he was filthy from the climb up the hill. Yet, he struggled on despite the growing irritations.

Up ahead the bridge came into sight. It was not too far away, though there seemed to have been some sort of accident. There were cars everywhere, but none of them were moving. In fact, no one was even honking their horns or shouting about the injustice of their inconvenient wait.

How had all of this happened so suddenly? He wished that he knew. After leaving school he wandered over to the park. No one there had seemed to be having problems. Had everything started from this side of town, or was something else at work? How long ago did everything start? It could not have been long ago, otherwise he would never have gotten his scooter to the store. Yet, where were all the people?

Many thoughts invaded his mind while he walked slowly along the river bank. Did it all happen at once? Did the effects of his asthmatic power-walk not kick in until the first blue light show? Were all the vehicles dead just like his scooter? The last thought would explain a lot, but it did not explain where all the people went.

He whispered softly to himself, If my scooter died when this all started then it was a couple of hours ago? How am I alive? Why wasn't I attacked until the store?

Thoughts of the poor fat bastard surfaced. He ran from those ghouls. There was no way that a man that fat jogged regularly, yet he ran from the ghouls. The fact that the corpulent walking corpse ran far longer at the time than Scott could run at the moment also lent credence to the first blue-light show theory. Until he was caught up in that weird mess, he moved normally.

Suddenly, a gurgling cry echoed outward from the water. Scott turned his head, and then wished that he had not. From out of the river crawled what could only be the love child of a crocodile and a professional wrestler. It was some sort of lizard man. Green-scaled, naked, and obviously hungry, it quickly fixed its eyes on Scott's location.

Meat! cried the hideous beast before rapidly moving toward him on all fours.

Shit! shrieked Scott before he started to haul asthmatic ass toward the bridge. He was already tired, but somehow he forget that fact as he desperately sped his way toward his chance at salvation. Of course, the primal part of his brain that responded to the sight of a bipedal crocodile man was also the part that forgot that he could not simply run as he pleased. Scott gave out of breath quickly and soon all he could do was stagger forward. He nearly collapsed to the ground completely, but somehow managed to stay on his feet.

If he could get home, he could take a moment to think. That’s what he hoped anyway. Home was familiar. Home had food, clean clothes, and an assortment of things he might conceivably turn into weapons if need be. Out here there was nothing but shark-toothed assholes, flying eyeballs, and lizard people.

Behind him the lizard man rose up on his hind legs. He hissed loudly and a set of frills opened wide on each side of his head. He began to chase after Scott on two legs, and somehow moved faster than he did when he was crawling on four.

Somehow, despite the exhaustion, Scott reached the stairway that led up to the bridge above. He took two steps upward then his eyes widened in fear as a yellow light flared outward to encompass him.

Several of the shark-toothed assholes staggered around the corner at the top. Scott stepped down and ended his turn. Once more he was caught up in a bizarre stop-motion existence. A dozen more of the monsters seemed to appear out of nowhere as the closest stepped toward the corner of the bridge. None of them looked at him directly.

He knew immediately that the bridge was out of the question as an escape route. The loud moans and groans of the ghouls rose to a fevered pitch as dozens, and then what sounded like hundreds of voices began to cry out. He kept stepping away from them as fast as he could whenever his turn came up. His only hope was to escape through the shadows under the bridge by using his slight lead.

Lizard guy was not to be denied, however. He screamed out what sounded like a cross between a hiss and the word Meat! The shark-toothed assholes did not fully notice Scott before, even though he did not know it. He merely triggered their hunting senses due to the potential presence of dinner. The lizard man was a different story. They clearly heard its cry.

Meat! snarled several of the vicious looking former people. They stumbled down the stairway as fast as they could, one turn at the time. By then Scott had already managed to make it out of their line-of-sight.

Scott walked away as quietly as he could during his step-by-step escape. Soon, his sides began to burn and he was soon forced to stop for a short rest. Had he looked back, however, he would have seen a curious sight. The shark-toothed people and the lizardman began to fight each other. Each of them cried out for meat, and a bloody war ensued between them.

The lizardman was much stronger and faster than the half-speed former humans, but what they lacked in speed they made up for in numbers. The ghouls and the lizard soon met in battle. The moment their movements crossed paths a terrible fight began. The lizard's claws swept out with incredible force and easily disemboweled the closest ghoul, just before he swept his body around and perform a brutal tail sweep that broke the legs of his prey and sent it falling