Night of the Living Rev 2: Killer Queen
As All Hallow’s Eve falls over Texas A&M University once again, the eerie silence of the night is broken only by the slow, deliberate scratching of a paw beneath dirt and the sound of a discordant, slightly off-key Reveille bugle call. Eight bony, wagging tails emerge from Texas A&M’s beloved mascot cemetery. From each grave surfaces a disjointed set of bones and viscera, identifiable only by chunks of fuzzy red fur and menacing canines. A howl from one signals the beginning of their annual night of terror, all hungering for the flesh of unsuspecting students.
Among the darkened windows in the Texas A&M Hotel & Conference Center, only one remains lit: the room of dead Zip and former handler Leon Crawford. Inside, old newspaper clippings of cold case murders, photographs of Rev from various angles, and his own frantic scribbles line all four walls. On the floor are scattered piles of unmarked manila folders and stacks of witness reports. Crawford sits among them and sharpens his silver saber, a once happy reminder of his days in the Corps. He examines it coldly, and, as his gaze moves to the window, he spots the pack of bloodthirsty creatures stalking away from their crypts. “Right on time,” he grumbles before rising from his seat at the window and exiting the centrally located, yet reasonably priced room.
The Revs are tearing chunks of flesh from their first victims when the sound of weathered senior boots hitting the pavement alerts the pack to the determined and grizzled old man. Quickly, their killer instincts take over. They launch themselves at him, biting furiously. Their teeth rend his flesh and leave bloody wounds that put them into a frenzy as he frantically waves them off with his silver saber. “None of them are her,” he thinks. “I have to stay alive long enough to find her.” Backed into a corner, Crawford reaches into his pocket. “Fetch!” he shouts, tossing a handful of cheese cubes in the opposite direction. Immediately, the rotting Revs chase the cheese, what little eyes they have left filled with puppy-like glee. Now freed from the threat of being torn to shreds, Crawford continues into the night to find the Reveille he was handler to many years ago, Reveille V.
A lone freshman exits the MSC after a post-exam Panda Express trip. After gorging himself on a pile of fried rice and two entrees, he happily heads back to his dorm. His Airpods are in and he doesn’t have a single care in the world. Lost in his music and self-congratulatory thoughts, he makes it halfway to Dunn Hall before he notices a faint, steady clicking coming from directly behind him. “Probably just another guy on a bike,” he thinks. “I wish they would just use the damn bike lane like a normal person.” He turns to shoot a dirty look over his shoulder, but instead of finding a biker, his eyes meet the haunting, dead-eyed stare of Reveille V. “Woah,” he whispers shakily. “You’re in bad shape, queen.” Feeling insulted and hungrier than ever, she lunges at the puny kid with all the ferocity in her decomposing body.
Crawford hears the high-pitched scream echoing from the South side of campus and starts to sprint in that direction, praying the Revs haven’t taken too many lives tonight. Following the acrid, metallic scent of fresh blood, he rounds the corner of Dunn Hall. The ex-cadet stops in his tracks when he sees his Rev chewing at her victim’s midsection, gore and sticky remnants of orange chicken clinging to her teeth. Seeing Crawford’s shadow creep over her meal, Reveille V looks up from the now former student. The decaying Rev, dripping with fresh blood, locks eyes with her handler from long ago. Without hesitation, she bolts toward him, ready to kill once more.
As she approaches, Crawford instinctively falls into the daedo gyunjukse stance, a sword technique he learned during his study abroad in Korea. The disfigured corpse moves deceptively fast and pounces as clumps of maggot-ridden fur fall off behind her. Reveille V’s rotting canines lock around his blade as Crawford falls and struggles to push back the reanimated body of his former friend at his throat. He kicks her back with all the strength he has left, stunning the corpse. Reveille regains her footing but wavers, seeming disoriented and looking at Crawford in confusion. There might be a hint of her former self still in there, but he isn’t here to find out. In that moment, he makes a desperate thrust, plunging the saber between her exposed ribs and finding purchase in the rotting flesh underneath.
As Reveille hangs on the saber, she slows her struggle, letting out snarls that slowly weaken into whimpers. Her weight on the sword begins to sag, and Crawford slowly lowers the saber until Reveille’s spasming body meets the concrete. Feeling lightheaded from his own wounds, Crawford brings himself down, sitting next to his old partner. He rests his one good arm across her twitching body in a reassuring gesture, the other hanging lifeless and limp. They sit like that, together the way they used to be, until the first signs of light appear on the horizon. It might’ve taken his own life to do it, but he’d stopped his former canine companion from taking any more students’ souls. “It’s alright, girl,” Crawford says, staring off in the distance as tears kiss his cheeks. Reveille V’s glowing red eyes fade, and her body ceases to move, this time for good. Crawford lays his head back and finally rests for what feels like the first time in years. He closes his eyes for the last time to the sound of the Corps starting their morning drills in the distance.
Later that morning, a winded cadet out on his morning run checks behind him and ducks through a shortcut. “I’d be first in my outfit if it wasn’t for those cig-” he says under his breath before turning the corner to find the aftermath of last night’s bloodshed. Bodies lay strewn at odd angles and blood stains the concrete beneath. Petrified, he slowly takes in the horror of the scene before him until his eyes rest on the bloodied body of an elderly man wearing Corps boots, lying alone with a tired smile on his face.
— Plaid Libs & Squat Pilgrim
