The Monotonous Seven

        1.  Short FICTION stories only.  There is no minimum word count, but there is a maximum of 10,000 words.
        2.  Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are very important and plays a part in my deciding who the winner is!  If it comes down to two stories, and one has many mistakes, guess which one i'll choose.  You may edit until the contest close.  I may look at the entries, but will judge them based on what I see at the close of contest.
        3.  No rating over 18+.
        4.  One entry per person.  Please provide a word count somewhere in the entry.  You may edit until the close  of the contest.  Winners will be announced within a week of the contest closing.  Post in bitem format.
        The prior month's winners will be posted on this page until the end of the next round.
        5.  In your forum post, please list the genres of your story.  Again, I will be giving one of the genres and it will be up to you to decide the other(s).
        6.  Previous work is allowed as long as it meets the guidelines.  But please, nothing with an awardicon.
        7.  Rounds begin on the 25th of the month and end 11:59 WDC time on the 24th of the following month.
        8.  Judging is based on how well you mix the genres, as well as plot, character development, etc.
        9.  Any more questions feel free to ask in the forum or via email.

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The Monotonous Seven

Chapter 1: Moot Hill


By Indelibleink

(Author's Note: This story is based loosely - no, make that tightly - on the 1960 movie, The Magnificent Seven, which was based on the 1954 film, Seven Samurai. If you think otherwise, you're way off base.)


Dis walked up to the undertaker, who was nearly in tears, and standing in the middle of the street next to his horse-drawn hearse.

"What's the problem here, people-planter?"

The undertaker, dabbing his eye with a chunk of tumbleweed because they didn't have Kleenex back then, sniffled, "My driver quit. He's scared to take the hearse up to Moot Hill."

Dis was perplexed. "He quit? Why? Is the hill haunted? Or is it that you just don't provide adequate health care for your employees?"

The undertaker laughed. "Most likely better health care than my latest customer had, wouldn't you say?" He then walked over and leaned in and spoke in a whisper. "Here's the problem, stranger: You see, old Jim was 100% pure Cherokee, and some folks 'round these parts don't take kindly to his kind being buried kind of close to their kind. So - in kind - my driver quit. Very un-kind of him."

"Aw hell, if that's all that's holding things up, I'll drive the hearse." Dis then leaned in towards the undertaker, and under his breath, said, "Is it an automatic or manual? Three-on-the-tree gives me trouble sometimes."

The undertaker rolled his eyes. "It's the 1850's, friend. Cars haven't been invented yet." He then leaned in towards Dis. "But it still does a mean zero-to-sixty." He beamed. "Two horse-power, you know."

Meanwhile, a weather-beaten drifter stood outside of the saloon and observed the goings-on in the street. He shook his head, threw his saddlebag over his shoulder, and walked up to Dis, who was now fastening his safety belt in the driver's seat of the hearse.

"Care for some company?"

Dis nodded affirmatively, and the drifter turned towards a man who was in the crowd of onlookers that was starting to form in the street. "Mind if I borrow that scattergun?"

The man said, "Sure, mister," and pushed his wife forward.

"No, no, sir....I said scattergun...not scatterbrain."

The man looked at the drifter sheepishly. "Sorry, mister. I don't hear so good. You are welcome to use my scattergun also, but be careful...That gun means everything to me. If things get real dangerous, be sure to come over and exchange the gun for my wife."

The drifter nodded, and while walking behind the hearse, noted a bumper sticker that said, "The dead bring my business to life. Use plenty of bullets!" He then hopped up on the hearse next to Dis. "The name's Fin. Any action around here?"

Dis shook Fin's hand, and then shook his head no. "No action around here at all. Where you from?"

Fin appeared a bit bewildered and shrugged. Dis then asked, "Well then, where you headed?"

Again, Fin shrugged - then explained, "Lost my Garmin in a poker game."

Dis offered a sympathetic frown. "Tough break. I mean, what with the inherent irony of 'losing' something that's designed to keep you from getting lost!"

"Hey Dis...Howsa-come you're the 'good-guy' star of this movie - but you wear a black shirt - and a clearly-second-banana-type-guy like me is wearing a white shirt? Somebody in wardrobe go on a real 'bender'? I mean, that is a 'Movies 101' rookie mistake if I've ever seen one."

Dis winced at the question. "It's a long story."

Fin countered with, "It's a long ride up to Moot Hill."

Dis sighed and said, "I'm only going to explain this once, so listen up...Originally, I was supposed to wear a white shirt, but there was a screw-up at the studio laundry and I was sent Sombrera's shirts by accident."

Fin grabbed Dis's arm. "Who's Sombrera?"

"He's a guy that we don't deal with until future chapters, but trust me - he's a real hand-full. He's an Italian guy who plays the leader of a big group of Mexican banditos. At least Sombrera looks a little more 'Mexican' than Freako does. Don't ask me why casting had such a problem with the concept of actually using a Mexican to play a Mexican. Oh well...Some things - like Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai - are better left unexplained."

Fin leaned back and sighed. "Good point. But back to the black shirt..."

"Yes," Dis continued, "Let's continue. So, since I didn't have a white shirt to film the scene in, I wore a black one. Later, when we were sitting around talking about high costs and stuff, and how we needed to do our part in recycling, I brought up the fact that I would be playing a bad guy in 13 years, in a film called Westworld, and how easy it would be if I could just wear the same thing I wore in this film."

Fin was clearly impressed. "Man, that's cutting-edge stuff. I sure wish I could come up with something like that for The Sand Pebbles, which is only six years from now. But, that's set in the 1920's, and I play a sailor. It's gonna be tough to recycle the costumes..."

Dis interrupted Fin to say, "Hey...it wasn't all glory. They cast Richard Benjamin as my co-star. Anyway, we'd better resume this story, or we won't be around for future movies. Giddy-up."

The hearse then began the slow journey through the town up to Moot Hill.

From a hotel room a couple stories up, an agitated voice screamed, "Indian lover!"

Fin swung around and took aim at the window. "Hey, it was only one time. And I didn't know she was eighty-three - the room was really dark..."

Dis reached over and grabbed Fin's arm, and whispered, "I think they're referring to our passenger - not your love-life." He then paused and said, "She was really eighty-three? Yuk. "

"I said it was really dark, and she was wearing a ton of war-paint." Fin gazed off in the distance. "But she was kinda hot, in a 'make-big-whoopee' kind of way..."

"Let's change the subject." Dis, turning green from the visual that was now occupying his thoughts, gave the reigns a snap and - unlike this story - the horses picked up the pace.

Dis noted Fin staring at someone approaching from behind the hearse. "Trouble?"

"Nah...I don't think so. Kinda weird, though...It looks like a German guy trying to pass himself off as a Mexican."

Dis was perplexed. "How can you tell all of that just by looking at him from here?"

Fin smiled. "Pretty easy...He's wearing a tee-shirt that says 'Don't call me Horst', and he also has a Rosetta Stone German-to-Mexican language CD."

Dis was even more perplexed. "Mexican? What language is 'Mexican'?"

Fin thought for a moment. "It's American language, but with an accent."

"Oh...That's what I figured."

As the hearse neared the top of Moot Hill, Fin gripped his weapon a little tighter. He also drew his scattergun alongside. "Looks like we've got a welcoming committee..."

Sure enough, there were six men blocking the entrance to the cemetery. And, actually, one did have tea and cookies, but the expressions on the faces of the other men did not exactly scream, "Welcome, dead Injun and friends."

"That's far enough, pardner." The leader of the ornery-looking cowboys had his shotgun aimed right at Dis, and the others were fidgeting with their six-shooters in a "just-give-me-a-reason" kind of way.

Fin looked over at Dis. "Now, what do we do?"

Dis looked at Fin with that "I-got-an-idea" look, and said, "I got an idea." Dis disembarked from the hearse, and approached the itchy-trigger-fingered cowpokes. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and said, "You fellas know that it's against city ordinance number 2632.7 to block the burial of an Indian on the third Wednesday in August? Says so right here."

Dis waved the document in the air, and the puzzled burial obstructors looked to their shotgun-toting leader for direction. He scratched his chin while he pondered the turn of events, then walked over to Dis and examined the document. "Well, it looks like they got us on a technicality, boys. Guess we don't get to shoot nobody today." He turned to the clearly dejected group and said, "Might as well give 'em a hand burying old Jim, he's gettin' pretty ripe."

As the gunslingers-turned-nose-pinchers-turned-gravediggers attended to Jim, Fin walked over to Dis. "Let me look at those so-called 'documents' a second." His expression turned to one of surprise, and then he began to laugh. This is just a ticket for illegally parking your horse in a 'mules only' zone earlier today! How'd you fool those guys with this?"

Dis smiled at Fin. "It's the 1850's, remember? I was pretty sure none of these guys could read."

In the background, Freako (the German-playing-a-Mexican guy) looked on in admiration with a "Someday-I'm-gonna-be-with-them" look. Dis glanced back at him with a "I-wouldn't-bet-on-it" look.

Meanwhile, back at the Mexican village, the thunderous sound of many horses approaching told the villagers that bad news lurked over the horizon: Sombrera and his men!

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Words: 1521