The Legend of El Ghost

By Aaron Casillas

Created by video game industry veteran Aaron O. Casillas, this original I.P. takes the best of Mexican Luchador/Wrestler movies, “Mad Max” and the “Fast and Furious” and melts them into a revenge driven post-post-apocalyptic action adventure.

Years after civilization has fallen. Earth has given rise to an unimaginable cast of inhabitants, theocracies, cult driven cities, roaming bounty hunters and slave drivers.

The planet is now a place where drug lords can become drug gods, but it’s also a place where the unlikeliest of people can become a Luchador inspired comic book hero.

“The Legend of El Ghost” is a story about a man who is driven to the edge of insanity by the guilt of watching a crime he should have stopped.

Living on a knife’s edge his insatiable thirst for redemption drives him closer and closer to the edge of suicidal tendencies.

Will El Ghost find redemption on his journey or will he become another victim to the new rise of evil that is spreading throughout the land?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aaron Casillas
• Release date: Jan 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310094941

Aaron Casillas

Thank you for visting. About the author, Aaron Casillas is an award winning Game Designer and industry veteran. With a career spanning nearly two decades, his experiences includes intellectual property development, game design and simulations. He earned a Fine Arts degree from U.C.L.A School of Art with an emphasis in New Genres of Art.

Book preview

Thank you for downloading and purchasing this eBook.  About the author, Aaron Casillas is an award winning Game Designer and industry veteran. With a career spanning nearly two decades, his experiences includes intellectual property development, game design and simulations.  He earned a Fine Arts degree from U.C.L.A School of Art with an emphasis in New Genres of Art.

The words in this story are a work of fiction and completely original material, any resemblance to living, dead, places or event or locales are purely coincidental or Fine Art in taste and manner.

This pulp novelette fits within the stylistic universe of Luchador movies, mythologies and popular cultural referential nature of Luchador mythopoeia.  If you’re a fan you’ll recognize the narrative lineage and style.

If you’re new to the genre I hope you become a fan of the Luchador Universe and genre.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.  This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people.  If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Dedicated to Professors Swinger (r.i.p), Ronn Davis, F.Nishimura, P. McCarthy, C. Burden, S. Miyamoto and all inspirational people.

Warning

Some Material may be of Adult Content. Not suitable for children.

Warning

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About the Author

Chapter 1 Palm Sunday

Chapter 2 Apocalyptic Rosary

Chapter 3 Knocking at Your Door

Chapter 4 Road Rash

Chapter 5 The Citadel

Chapter 6 We Meet

Chapter 7 Megalopolis

Chapter 8 Sheriff’s Tower

Chapter 9 Tiffany

Chapter 10 Last Night

Chapter 11 Coffee House

Chapter 12 Party Time

Chapter 13 Grind House

Chapter 14 Meet Jesus

Chapter 15 Run For Your Lives

Chapter 16 Dance with Death

Chapter 17 After Life Now

Chapter 18 Crash

Chapter 19 Megalopolis

Chapter 20 Moving Towers

Chapter 21 Pyramids of Megalopolis

Chapter 22 Dust Child

Chapter 23 May Day

Chapter 24 Enter the Snake God

Chapter 25 The Siege of Megalopolis

Chapter 26 A Wedding and a Death

Chapter 27 The Ceremony of War

Chapter 28 The Snake God

Chapter 29 Inside the Belly

Chapter 30 Back in Time

Chapter 31 Fiesta

Chapter 32 Revenge Can Take Time

Chapter 1 Palm Sunday

A palm soot stained green freeway sign reads 10 miles towards the downtown center of the dilapidated city of Los Angeles.  A behemoth monument half buried by dirt and miscellaneous garbage. The sins of the past reel indiscernibly into the hopes of the present time, reminding us how they continue their insatiable leeching quest.

A water bill, a gas bill and a credit card bill half eaten by the baking sun and the shit storm of fragmenting pebbles roll away frolicking carelessly, like they ever meant something wonderful to someone other than a bill collector.

They sway and open up revealing browned crisp flailed edges.  Rolling and playing together catching hot air, like perfect predators they fly away looking for another set of eyes and another soul to suck.

Wisps of red dust fly by battering pock marked and holed stucco walls.  The city is intertwined by concrete pillared stalked freeways long ago collapsed.  Freeway signs once green wobble loosened by years of wind.

They make long hollow metal woops as they bend like stiff flags to nowhere.

The rebar metal veins of the city expose themselves to be the new fauna in a new desperate landscape.

For miles there is no clear evidence of pleasure seeking life otherwise, no one and no one thing exposing itself to the new harsh reality openly and freely.  Whatever was left is no longer the same.

Downtown, the several storied glass buildings have shattered windows and exposed super structure sections.  They whistle loudly in an eerie symphony when the wind passes through their standing remains.  A lonely yellow solar powered radio, black dials and white numbers plays away.

Blue skies become gray

hatred clouds bloom away

he’ll drive up to help you

dirty lands will rock

masked man coming for you

he’s outside blurring mask sways

The lyrics quickly disappear into the roar of a scratchy dust storm.

On the very top of the tallest building, crouching on the corner edge of the roof, looking out over the vastness of the chaparral desert, buried city ruins and the Joshua tree forests judiciously stands Hurricane, older wrinkled, but still flexing his thin muscle striated build with every graceful movement.

A genetic gift from his ancestors, his dark skin glimmers when kissed by the post-apocalyptic sun.

Complimenting his thin shape are his smoky stained leather bandoliers crossing his chest.

Names etched on each bullet, some freshly carved, others older than a decade.

One heavy sniper rifle stands by his side.  He raises and then lowers his binoculars with his left arm, raises his right dark chromed colored robotic arm and takes a puff of his cigar.

The ashes trail off curling away with a gust of a twisting breeze.

He flips over his head a hoodie covering his face half in shadow. His one good eye pierces through the darkness like a beacon.

Stopping for a moment, he begins to reminiscence.  His eyes glaze over and begins to record his memoirs on a small device hanging around this neck with a simple deliberate click of a button.

The world had changed, rapidly, can't say without warning, because from what I know, they all knew for years.  His cigar's tip now grows ash heavy.  Tinges of air ignite ember veins.

She flipped against us, because we flipped against her, Earth, we had our turn, now we fight on to stay alive.  Hurricane slowly closes his eyelids and recalls a distant memory still fresh, living on the tip of his mind.

In his memory, scores of people roam across a barren hillside.  Their silhouettes mark the crest of a long red sand dune they trespass.

The memory temporarily ends when he opens his eyes ever so slowly and exhales cigar smoke through the corners of his mouth.

He holds the recording device closer to catch the sound of his voice.  People discovered that paper wasn't money, food and family and love were real money...we sought a new answer, a new way.

Closing his eyes he squints into the past, the memories refresh like moments that happened a minute ago.

Clay off-white huts in a small village with greenery about are laid out orderly in a shallow valley.  Smoke rises gently from hidden underground hearths and villagers tend to their gardens while children play.

Then there were those that fell into controlling minds, hearts and the spirits of many through the cult of fear.  That was their new currency.

The clay huts are destroyed and burn in a raging fire.  The villagers are led off chained by men wearing armor of a variety of assortments.

Times like these, heroes are just ordinary people suspending that fear for a brief minute, nay just one brief millisecond, a speckle of time washing through space, Lightning Speed!  But to get there, to that moment, sometimes it takes personal tragedy to awaken the innermost hero.

Hurricane takes a deep breath, his chest heaves in and heaves out a long collection of air.

It all started with a tragedy to a friend, a compadre in arms, many many years ago, what he told me I'll never forget.  He told me his darkest secret.  The soul fuel that made him go, the experience that haunted him and now I pass it on to you.  With the hope that it haunts you as well.

Like a razor sharp dream he recalls one last memory, a vision imprinted there by a tragedy told to him.

A lady in a white air-flowing gown stands precariously on the edge of a cliff.  Her hair is long, silky and jet black, matched only by the darkness of her deep watery charcoal eyes.

Her hair moves and waves feeling the space around her.

The fabric of her gown is torn and spotted red with the violent primordial splatter of blood, she has been clearly violated.  Beaten, her wrists are free but still wrapped with strands of rope.

Next to her a tree has caught fire and begins to burn.

The trunk of the tree is wrapped by the bindings that once held her.

Embers from the campfire nearby have spread and are landing on the tree and sparking off when they hit the trunk.

When the embers hit the bindings they burn fast like a fuse as they catch fire sizzling away.  

She looks up and walks backwards.

She mouths something inaudible for several seconds and then steps off the cliff in a slow graceful motion.

White cloth tongs from her attire slowly feel out around her, she falls backwards over the cliff's ledge.  She continues to mouth words away, disappearing into the cloudy abyss down below.

She commits suicide.  Hurricane awakens, barely mumbling he recants What he told me, is that she said words that burned into his very soul...instructions to repent and live by.  It all started so long ago, yet so clearly I can still hear what el Ghost told me about his vision.

He pauses momentarily ...and breathes it all in.

Chapter 2 Apocalyptic Rosary

The sound of a speeding vehicle quickly picks up like a voice from the past.

I remember now...twenty one years ago...the distant hum, metallic gear changing heavy blocked eight- piston- engine accompanying a lonely voice in a strange uncanny prayer.  Both sounds are syncopated like that of Buddhist monks chanting.

A loud engine roars away.  The desert is but a blur, racing by an under saturated simplified color palette of streaks.  The chase vehicle, bullet ridden and scarred is being driven by a man wearing an off gold luchador mask.

In this day it is more than just cars that are being driven, a man has destiny by the steering wheel.

Hurricane's voice traveling through time recalling the man's name, el Ghost, that's what he goes by...and that’s what we knew him by the very first day we met him.  His voice disappears into a moment of the past.

El Ghost focuses his