“Shit.  They got Smasher!”

    The words pierced my ears like poison daggers as I looked out in the parking lot
and saw the lifeless body of my fallen brother, Brain Smasher.

    “He'll need a closed casket ceremony,”  I observed, not even realizing who I was talking to.
I felt the cold sting of loneliness that comes with losing a battle-seasoned comrade and remembered
Smasher’s unyielding support of the Assault Weapons Ban.  Fat load of good it did him now.
His cerebellum splattered on the asphalt displayed the unmistakable signature of an AK-47.

    I remembered my warm, soft, bed at home and wondered why I’d ever come here.
Why did I leave a good life and a steady gig to go west and join a motley band of glossy-eyed zombie devotees?
What was it that made me turn my life over to a slack-jawed Okie who ruled his empire with a smart mouth
and a DSL modem? What was it?
    Oh yeah, the Truth

    "Fuck the Truth!” I gasped, making a mental note to be a Republican in my next life.

    It was only then that I realized that I was talking to our Commander-in-Chief himself.
    He was right by my side, swigging from a bottle of Chinaco Anejo and firing his Glock at Tom Delay’s goons
as they swarmed around the building.

    We'd begged him to use a more powerful weapon but he refused with a true soldier's loyalty.
 “I'll live and die with The Baby,” He told us.

    In all, there were about 300 of us. All kinds. Nurses, musicians, software engineers. All had left hearth and home
to join the movement and live side-by-side in a converted bowling ally. And here I was, maniacally firing my
Thompson gun, shoulder to shoulder with our leader, the notorious internet loudmouth Bartcop.
I looked at BC and knew what I had to do.

    “I'm going to get him,” I said as I shed my cumbersome ammo belt.

    “You're crazy,” said BC as he emptied a Hershey’s-Kiss-shaped bottle and reached for another.

    “I don't care!” I barked, “I'm not gonna leave his body out there to be eaten by Freepers.

    “Oh, that,” said BC, “Go ahead. I was just making an observation. You're fucking nuts, Gen.
You always have been. Everybody says so. Something about you  just ain't right.
Yeah…you might as well go get Smasher. Have at it.”

    “Cover me!"  I yelled as I sprang out if the window and into a hail of shrapnel and hot lead.
I avoided bee lining out to Smasher, taking a drunkard's walk so the ditto-snipers couldn't get a bead on me.
Gasping for breath, I came upon Smasher’s lifeless corpse. Quickly, I thrust the corpse over my shoulder and ran,
grunting, back to the shelter of the bowling alley.

    “That'll teach Smasher to try to negotiate with the opposition,” I said sardonically as I heaved the body
through the shattered window, quickly following it through and falling to the floor, exhausted.

    I looked upon the lifeless shell of Brain Smasher and wondered why I'd risked my life to retrieve the bloody cadaver.
His head was half gone, his frontal lobe reduced to liquid by the Teflon-coated cop-killer bullets he'd fought so hard
to outlaw. His pants were ripped to shreds, revealing his dark and shameful secret: a pair of filthy, threadbare
Haynes briefs. He must have worn that pair of Haynes his whole life.

   “Jesus Christ!” I exclaimed, choking back the nausea.

   “That's disgusting!” giggled BC. “Didn't his mama ever tell him this could happen?”

   “Let's not tell the others,” I replied and covered Smasher’s shame with a bloody blanket.

   More determined than ever, I picked up my vintage Thompson and resumed firing at the crazed mob
of dittomonkeys who were closing in on our lair. BC tapped me on the shoulder and offered me a slug from his bottle.

   “Don't backwash,” he warned, pointing The Baby at my head for effect.

   Suddenly, there was a look of confusion on BC's face as he snapped to his feet.
“Shit! I've gotta update the page!” he belched and rushed over to his computer, which was sitting in the corner
flickering with the “Flying Windows” screensaver. He began to type furiously, alternately snickering and bleating,
“Fuck you, Pigboy!”

   It was then that I heard the whining ricochet of a stray bullet and watched helplessly as BCs cranium
erupted with gurgling blood and splattered brain.

   He remained eerily upright for a few moments before collapsing face-first on the keyboard.
“Ewww!” I cried, “Fuckin’ Gross!”

   “So,” I thought, “this is how it ends.”
I shed a tear for Bartcop Nation as I slumped, defeated, against the cinder-block wall, waiting for the icy hand of death