DISCLAIMER: I do not own Hellsing, fire, the pepsi-cola corporation, the Koch brothers, or any dinosaur tentacle zombies to the best of my knowledge, although the concept is all mine, as is Felipe Estoban the banjo-playing luchadore sasquatch. Vasily belongs to SFTiki.
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"Six months and it's still fucking raining." Walter sighed.
The once-proud Hellsing mansion had been built in 1896 by vampire slave labor, used to smuggle premium liquor to America in the 1920s, lit on fire by Alucard in 1936, was the location used by the council of twelve to plan World War Two, was lit on fire again by Alucard in 1952, and once and for all burned to the ground by Alucard six months ago.
The Hellsing mansion had been reduced from 120 rooms, 8 secret passageways, 4 concealed anti-aircraft turrets and a helipad to a shoddy shelter made from glued-together empty beer cans in the shape of four pillars and a tarp, placed in the middle of the blackened wreckage of the Hellsing family home.
Large, mutated raccoons roamed the land, eating smaller animals and sexually assaulting any human they came across. To add to the problem, it had turned out that Alucard had been breeding rats in his basement to pass the time, and the two different breeds of large, mutated animal had spent the first three months in a kind of brutal range war across the Hellsing family's 400 acres, and the last three months breeding with each other to create a new race of horrible hell monsters.
The British government had refused to bail the Hellsing family out, so Pip, the Wild Geese and Vasily were being rented out to Integra's old frenemy Flint McGint's privatized vampire hunting firm. The staff had all left screaming after the first five or six were eaten alive by the RatCoons. Walter remained, primarily for reasons of loyalty. Loyalty, and he now had close to a year of back pay owed him.
Alucard had left after two months to go to America and try a couple of get rich quick schemes, and they had not heard from him since. Walter secretly wondered if Alucard had actually tried to swim there and gotten eaten by sharks.
In short, the Hellsing family had seen better days.
Speaking of which…
"The last cookie is mine! MINE!" Sir Integra was choking Seras, who was kicking her repeatedly in the shins. "I FOUND THEM IN THAT DUMPSTER, THEY'RE MINE!" Seras picked Integra up, twirled her around and tossed the neurotic knight into one of the beer can pillars, knocking down Walter's precious tent enclosure.
"Yeah, take that!" Seras shouted. "Oh, sorry Walter. You okay?"
Walter wrapped himself in the shower curtain he had been using for a blanket. "Fine, Seras. By the way, those cookies have mold on them, maybe we should just toss them-"
"Nuh uh, I'm a vampire, mold can't hurt me, so it's mine by default." Seras stuck her hand in the cookie jar, but was surprised by Integra breaking an empty vodka bottle over the vampire's head. "PITIFUL MONSTER, THE ALCOHOL IN MY SYSTEM WILL KILL ANY INFECTION!"
"Oh yeah?" Seras grabbed the cookie jar. "Well, you'll have to come get me!" the vampire scurried up a nearby tree.
Integra shook her fist. "CURSE YOU, THUNDER-TITS! Raccoon slaves, fetch me my chainsaw!"
Walter snuck off to find a payphone. And some change. Maybe if he got lucky, the mercenaries would have some cookie funds to send…
Click. "Hello, Mister Bernadette."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" CRUNCH.
Pip's jeep hit another tentacle zombie, who broke open in several places before just missing the leaking cans of radioactive waste Pip had been juggling while driving the jeep with his feet.
"CANNOT TALK! AM BUSY RIGHT NOW!" Pip screamed into the car phone.
"Mister Bernadette, it's been weeks. How long could it possibly take to kill a few ghouls?" Walter heard a bone-chilling roar in the background. "Where are you, anyway?"
"Oh, you know, around and about. I don't actually know, the plane was on fire and this zombie baby thing was chewing on my hand so I'm not sure where we were steering, and Felipe kept throwing unprimed grenades at the back of my head, and then we found out the plane was carrying, like, two hundred pounds of spiders in the back, and-"
"Who is Felipe?"
"That's a very long story, and I doubt you would believe me if I told you. We found him in Canada. I think it was Canada, anyway. There were maple syrup rivers, and those guys with the hats and the guitars. Mariachi."
"Is there no postal service in the country you are currently gracing with your presence?"
"KUS WOLA! AB'JEM TA!" Vasily, his normally spotless uniform covered in bite marks and blood stains, pile drived three zombies at once.
"Uh, no. I don't think so. All of the signs have little pictures instead of words. Right now, we're in…" Pip checked a nearby sign. "Soccer ball, squiggly line, blender, squiggly line, vacuum cleaner. AAAAH WHAT THE FUCK!"
A reanimated Tyrannosaur chased Pip's jeep, the beast's tentacles writhing as its three heads snapped at Pip's hat.
"I'll thank you to keep your language clean with me, young fellow." Walter said.
"Felipe, catch!" Pip tossed another box of grenades at a hulking sasquatch dressed in an ill-fitting red Luchadore costume. Felipe hit the box of grenades with his steel-lined banjo, scattering primed explosives in a thirty-meter radius.
"Oh, fuck! I'll call you back. GODDAMN ZOMBIE DINOSAURS!"
KA-BOOM.
Walter hung up the phone. "Filthy layabouts. Probably playing a video game." He fished out another coin from his pocket and dialed Flint's home number. "Maybe he'll be able to send their paychecks here…" Walter mumbled to himself.
"WHO SENT YOU!?"
"Hello, I'm Walter. We may have met before. I work for Sir Integral Hellsing. You see…"
"LIES! Walter is a tall human with a ponytail! You're some kind of plastic device with a grate at either end! Stop lying to me, robot!" BANG. "I'll shoot you! I'm crazy!"
"Plastic devi…" Walter sighed. "This is a phone, Flint. I'm speaking to you through the phone."
"WITCHERY!"
"No, it's just modern technology, which is more or less the same thing. Listen, could you just send Pip and Vasily's paychecks here to the Hellsing estate? They seem to be unable to collect at the moment."
"Nah, all my funds are tied up with this thing with Alucard."
"Dammit. Did he make it to the states?"
"Yep. We're involved in something right now, but he said you should be getting money soon. And not monopoly money like last time."
"Have you been taking your medication, Flint? Just out of curiosity."
"If by 'medication', you mean LSD, then yes. Anyway, I've got a meeting with some prominent investors and I've got to clean all the dead turkeys out of my living room before they get here."
"Dead…eurgh. Thank you." Walter hung up, sighed and began scrounging the ground for quarters again, when he noticed a newspaper lying on the ground. "Hmmm…I wonder if they've shot Joe Biden yet…" His eyes widened when he saw the headline. "Oh, no…"
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Seras waved after Sir Integral's taxi. "Boy, am I glad Sir Integra smokes so much. Otherwise, she would have figured out that was a coaster and not a biscuit that I gave her."
"MISS VICTORIA!" Walter, out of breath, waved at the police girl with a rolled up newspaper. "I figured out what Alucard's scheme was! He's getting his campaign donors to give us hush money! Wait, where's Sir Integral?"
"She got a check from some Coca-cola brothers, then said that she was taking a vacation to California to get oiled up by scantily clad surfer dudes. I wasn't invited." Seras pouted.
"Coca…dammit. Look." Walter unfurled the newspaper.
"Walter, what are you…" Seras's jaw dropped. "Oh, fuck me."
BUSINESSMAN ALLEN U. CARD WINS REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY, IS EXPECTED TO NAME DONALD TRUMP AS RUNNING MATE
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, this isn't March. Sorry about that. Life happened, and I had an idea for this chapter that I could never quite get off the ground. I intend to write Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes, although we'll see how that turns out.
Thanks for your patience, and the next one will almost certainly take less time.