FORCES OF EVIL: THE BOARD GAME
by Rik Hunik
Copyright 2014 by Rik Hunik
Chapter 1
“Hey, Sue, it looks like some kind of secret door in the back of this cupboard,” Eddie said, kneeling on the kitchen floor, trying to see past the flickering light of his candle. The shelf was not fastened down so he lifted it, tilted it and removed it. With the shelf no longer holding the panel in place it came out easily, with a bit of persuading using the point of a paring knife.
Fifteen minutes ago, right after the power went out, Eddie Harmon and his wife Sue took their one candle and discovered that the backup generator happened to be missing a spark plug. They had borrowed the small, two bedroom house on Tibbles Lake for the weekend from their friend, Sam Campbell, who always referred to as his “little cabin on the lake,” even though it was as large as many houses in town and was equipped with every modern convenience, most of which could not be used without electricity.
They were searching every nook and cranny for more candles when they found the secret door. In the narrow space between the studs stood a cardboard box about a foot square and two inches thick. Eddie hooked his fingers over the top of the box and pulled it out to reveal four candles standing there. Grabbing them he said, “Jackpot,” and withdrew from the cupboard.
He handed the candles to Sue and picked up the box. Wiping the dust off with his sleeve Eddie said, “Check this out.” The black-on-gloomy-gray print on the box lid was hard to see and the wavering candlelight made the print seem to dance, but when he held the box to the light just right it was clear. He read aloud, “Forces Of Evil: The Board Game.”
“Bonus, a game. What does it look like?”
Eddie turned the box over. Though much smaller the print on the back was white-on-black, a great deal easier to read. Pronouncing the title slowly, in exaggerated, sonorous tones, he read, “‘Forces Of Evil; The Board Game.’ Based on the famous cult movie.”
She giggled at his performance. “If it’s so famous, how come we’ve never heard of it?”
Eddy shrugged. “Maybe because we live in a cultural backwater.” He continued reading the box. “‘Recreate the climactic battle from the end of the movie, when evil has overrun the city and a desperate group of humans must defend the warehouse against the Zombie Horde long enough to kill the Zombie Champions, thus saving the world.’”
“Do you think we can play it by candlelight?”
“Let’s try.”
Eddie set up the board on the dining room table while Sue lit the candles and placed one at each corner. The box also contained a stack of cards and three or four dozen plastic figurines, each about three centimeters tall. Peering into the box Sue said, “There are a lot of pieces in there. I better roll a joint.”
“Great idea. I’ll check out the rules.” Eddie flipped open the rule book and started skimming through the pages while Sue got out their stash. By the time they finished smoking the joint Sue had the figurines sorted and he had the rules mostly figured out. They were both familiar with various board games and role playing games, and this was a combination of the two, so they quickly caught on to the rules of movement and combat, which were fairly simple but gave plenty of options for strategy.
“Well, let’s get started.” They set up the board for the easiest version, with only four heroes, but fewer Zombie Warriors climbing in through the window spaces every turn.
Halfway through their second turn Sue said, “Wow, this game is pretty tough. How can these four heroes be expected to fight so many zombie warriors, with more coming in every turn, if half of them miss their attack?”
Eddie checked the rules. “We have to pull equipment cards to get fighting men, grenades, and other things to help us, and if the front door opens we'll have even more zombies to contend with.”
The woman moved her little plastic figurine to an empty square and drew a card from the top of the stack, looked at it, then threw it down on the table. “What’s this?” It showed a small picture of a tall black man with a tattooed face, a fur-trimmed robe and a feathered costume. A small caption read, “Zombie Master.”
Eddie consulted the rules again. “That’s one of the Evil Champions; there are three of them we have to kill. The Zombie Master is the toughest. He heads for the vault and steals the Book Of The Undead. If he gets out the door with it we lose. Then there’s the Zombie Captain, who opens the back door to let in even more zombies, and the Voodoo Queen, who stays on one guy until she beats him to death or dies trying.”
They drew more cards and managed to set up a line of fighting men to keep the zombies back while they fought to stop the Zombie Master from getting to the vault. He defended against their every attack and soon had the book. That’s when the front door burst open and more zombies poured in.
Eddie's hero wounded the Zombie Master but there were too many zombies for the heroes to handle and they couldn’t prevent him from escaping out the door with the book.
“I guess that’s it, we just lost,” he said, pushing away from the table.
“Unless you want to play again. We didn’t know what to expect when we started and we had some bad luck with dice rolls, but now that we know the mechanics of the game and have some idea what to expect, I think we could win.”
Before he could answer the power came back on. He glanced at his watch, said, “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning. We have all weekend. Let’s catch the news and go to bed.” He blew out the candles.
They turned on the radio and tuned in to a local station in the middle of a newscast about an explosion in a local church. There were no details because it had just happened a few minutes ago. When the announcer started telling about local sports they shut off the radio, made love and fell asleep.