Full Wolf Moon-Part Three

Pryor surveyed the room.  Bright light illuminated a legion of bodies neatly placed in rows, long tubes dangling from the ceiling into each one.  A loud hum roared around them.  Giant fans blew cold air, keeping the temperature in the room thirty degrees cooler than the temperature outside.  The stiffs over his shoulders were getting heavy.  Pryor let them slump onto the ground.  The little man started dancing around like an excited child, giddy at the sight of Christmas presents.  He started talking to himself as he examined the two new recruits.

"Yes,yes, perfect, perfect.  Number two hundred ninety nine and number three hundred!  Yes, Yes!  I have my army!  My three hundred!  Yes, yes, yes!"

He started to drag one of the bodies towards an empty slab but it proved to be too heavy.  He cast a beseeching look towards Pryor.

"Help me soldier man?  Is too heavy for me.  Help me complete my army?"

Pryor stared at the little man.  Army?  What kind of madness was this?  He picked up the bodies and followed the little man down to a slab.  The little man jumped on top of the first and began to cut up the sleeve of his uniform, exposing his arm.  He began to hum a little hum as he inserted a needle into the man's vein, then hopped off and retrieved a set of wires, which he placed gently on various points across his skull.  Pryor moved closer to the tube and watched a clear liquid begin to course into the dead man's body.

"What are you doing? What is all this?"

The little man smiled and began his ministrations on the second body.  "My army, solider man.  My three hundred.  And like King Leonidas I shall be invincible!  I will be able to vanquish my enemies!"

Pryor bent down closer to the man, grabbed him by the shoulders and looked deep into his eyes.  The little man held Pryor's gaze without flinching.  Crazy.  Totally bat shit crazy.  Pryor began to speak very slowly and softly.

"These men are all dead.  How can you have an army of the dead?"

An enormous Cheshire Cat grin enveloped the little man's face.  He answered equally slow and soft.

"I know they're dead.  That's what makes them invincible.  Well, that and the Lycan blood."

"The Lycan blood?"

'Yes, yes, Lycan blood.  How else can they be invincible?  Even the walking dead can be destroyed by a blow to the head, but if they're reanimated with Lycan blood, they're invincible!!'''

Pryor expected him to throw back his head and release a maniacal laugh, but he merely went about his business, attaching wires and making sure the flow in the tubes was at a consistent rate.  Pryor looked at all the bodies lying upon their biers.

"Are all these men soldiers?"

The little man stopped what he as doing and looked at Pryor as if he were an idiot.

"Well of course they are.  You wouldn't create an army out of street cleaners, would you?"
He went about his business, muttering to himself about the stupidity of some people.

Pryor chuckled to himself.  An army of the undead.  An INVINCIBLE army of the undead.  This could prove very useful to him.   He sauntered over to the other side of the room where the little man was engrossed in the final preparations of his labor.

"You know friend, Leonidas and The Three Hundred were slaughtered at the battle of Theormopylae.  Xerxes and the Persian forces destroyed them."

The little man violently turned towards Pryor, fear and anger clouding his face.

"Only because they were betrayed!  Only because Ephialtes told the Persians about the goat path!  Only because he betrayed noble Leonidas!"  The little man's eyes narrowed  "Do you plan to betray me soldier man?"

Once again Pryor knelt down next to the little man, gently placing his hand on the other man's shoulder.

"No my friend.  I plan on leading your army to glorious victory,"