Author's note: I've written down this story as it was related to me by my friend Cletus J. Ridgerunner. I've embellished it a bit but the story is entirely his. As far as I know it is absolutely true.

Bo Duke ran and slid across the hood of the General Lee. "Yahoo!" he hollered, "We're gonna win this race for sure, Luke!" Bo flipped off the man called Bandit and grinned the devilish grin that he was known for.

Bandit smiled and returned the bird with both hands. "We'll see about that, you cussed Duke boys!"

Just then Bandit's hat was knocked off by a banana peel!

The banana peel had been thrown by Bear, a chimpanzee who rode shotgun on a semi truck with his owner B.J. McKay. Bear hooted and began peeling another banana. Good thing for Bandit he wasn't into flinging his poop like other chimps!

Bandit picked up the banana peel and tossed it back. "Keep your darn fruit to yourself you big monkey!" he grumbled as he dusted off his hat.

B.J. McKay pulled himself out from under the cab of his semi where he'd been tinkering with the brakes. "Bandit, that's just Bear's way of wishing you good luck!" he said with a chuckle.

Luke Duke poked his head out of the General Lee. "You'd better hope that monkey throws a banana peel under our wheels if you want to beat us in this race!" he said with a sly grin.

A twinkle escaped Bandit's eye. "If that cousin Daisy of yours is at the finish line I'll beat you for sure!" he laughed.

"Gentlemen, start your engines!" boomed the voice of an announcer from the racetrack speakers. A cheer erupted from the audience.

Luke settled himself in the General Lee and pointed his finger at Bandit. "Stay away from Daisy or uncle Jesse will shoot you full of holes!" he stated gruffly, pulling his imaginary trigger.

"I'm a moonshine aficionado!" Bandit shot back, "So me and your uncle would get along just fine!" Bandit opened the door of his Pontiac Trans Am and saluted the Dukes. "Now watch Trigger here put your General Lee to shame!"

The Duke boys and Bandit were competing in a race for charity. They had met several years earlier at another race. Bandit knew B.J. McKay from way back. B.J.'s red and white Kenworth semi was a familiar sight on the highway. He had delivered the sound system for the race. Bandit had introduced B.J. and Bear to the Dukes and they had all hit it off just fine.

Meanwhile the dastardly Boss Hogg, along with Sheriffs Buford T. Justice, Elroy P. Lobo and Rosco P. Coltrane, were plotting against Bandit and the Dukes. They didn't like them because they were redblooded American boys who didn't cotton to their uptight ways.

Boss Hogg and the sheriffs were hiding under the racetrack stands with a truckload of prisoners from the Hazzard County penitentiary. The convicts were all chained together. For a bunch of hardened criminals they were strangely silent. Hogg figured the convicts were just scared of him and the sheriffs. Who wouldn't be?

Hogg had a plan to let the gang of convicts run riot on the race and ruin it good. After the convicts beat up the drivers and wrecked the racetrack the three sheriffs would rush in and "save the day." The icing on the cake was that the race was supposed to benefit an orphanage but Boss Hogg wanted the property for himself and didn't care if he made the orphans homeless. Boss Hogg was a truly a heartless fiend!

But what Boss Hogg didn't know was that the convicts had been fed tainted food by the prison warden who was cheaper than Lulu Hogg at a trailer park rummage sale. The warden had bought the food from a crooked lieutenant who worked at the CDC in Atlanta. That lieutenant was so low he was probably a Hogg!

The food had been exposed to an experimental military virus and was supposed to have been destroyed. The virus in the food made the prisoners sick. Then they all died and came back as zombies hungry for human flesh. Boss Hogg just thought they were feeling peaked and would perk up once they got a whiff of some Duke blood.

The zombie convicts rattled their chains and moaned. Their wailing echoed ominously under the racetrack stands. They could hear the car engines revving outside on the track. They were getting excited. Soon they would feed!

"I'm not so sure about this." muttered Sheriff Justice. He was the least crooked of them all.

"Shut your trap!" grunted Sheriff Lobo, "It's too late to back out now!"

Boss Hogg wiped his brow with a handkerchief and nodded weakly. "Okay, let them boys go." he said nervously.

There was in total three dozen convicts squirming to be set free.

Rosco held his nose and took a key from his pocket. "Darn it, don't these fellas ever take baths? They smell like Lulu's cooking!"

Sheriff Lobo laughed. "They don't stink any worse than that old hound dog of yours!"

Rosco shook his fist at Lobo. "Don't you make fun of Flash!" Rosco dearly missed his basset hound Flash, who was back in Hazzard county in the care of his deputy Enos. He hoped Enos wasn't too busy chasing Daisy Duke around to feed Flash. Enos was one lovesick puppy when it came to Daisy Duke!

Boss Hogg lit a cigar. "Rosco," he said with impatience, "Hurry up before the race starts!" Hogg thought of the Duke boys all beat up and maybe even dead at the hands of the convicts. With them gone he could finally put that cantankerous Jesse Duke away for good. That old fool had it coming!

"Keep your extra, extra large suit on little buddy!" replied Rosco. He put the key in the lock that held all the chains together and turned it. He pulled the lock free and the chains fell away. The zombie convicts just stood there swaying and moaning. "Well, go on out there and kick some Duke cajones!" Rosco shouted.

Sheriff Justice and Sheriff Lobo looked at each other. Something was off about these prisoners. They were agitated but seemed uncertain of their newfound freedom. Something wasn't right.

Boss Hogg blew cigar smoke in the face of one of the prisoners. The sick-looking convict failed to cough or blink. He just stared at Hogg with hungry eyes. Hogg swatted the top of the man's head, setting off a swarm of flies that had been roosting in his hair. Maggots writhed and tumbled from the man's scalp. Rosco just about lost his cookies!

"Damn, maybe they don't take baths!" joked an uneasy Sheriff Lobo.

Boss Hogg was starting to get mad. He took his cigar and put it out on the convict's chest, leaving a burnt mark on his orange jumpsuit. "You good for nothing degenerate!" he shouted.

Sheriff Justice interrupted. "I don't think you should have done that, Hogg! Those men are dangerous!"

But Boss Hogg didn't listen. "You're on drugs ain't you?" he snapped at the prisoner, "Well, I'll make sure you get plenty more if you get out there and kick some Duke ass!"

The zombie convict groaned and grabbed Boss Hogg by the shoulders. Before anyone could do anything he leaned forward and ripped out Boss Hogg's throat with his nasty yellow zombie teeth!

Boss Hogg gurgled and sputtered blood. His face turned purple and he fell forward, bouncing on his fat belly like a beach ball, arms flailing.

Rosco crapped his drawers like a little baby and damn near fainted. That didn't keep him from thinking that maybe Hogg had left him something in his will. But he probably hadn't.

"Holy Moses!" screamed Sheriff Lobo. He and Sheriff Justice drew their guns and shot Boss Hogg's killer. The murderous convict shook as the bullets punched through his body but he refused to go down. Lobo and Justice couldn't believe it! The man must be on drugs! The bullet-riddled prisoner spit out the fatty piece of Boss Hogg he was chewing and went after Sheriff Lobo. Then the the dam broke!

Most of the other prisoners made for the exit because the audience outside had started screaming when they heard shots fired. Four of the ghouls broke from the pack and piled on Sheriff Justice, ripping him limb from limb and bathing in his spurting blood. Justice screamed in agony and watched as his own arms and legs were eaten like Kentucky Fried chicken at a picnic. You can bet Colonel Sanders never saw anything like that!

Sheriff Lobo had a conniption fit and shot wildly at the convict who had killed Boss Hogg. The bullet drilled through the man's head and pinged off a girder. Boss Hogg's killer slumped to the ground and lay still. What a lucky shot! Unfortunately it was Lobo's last bullet. He stood petrified, wishing he'd never met Hogg. These prisoners were acting just like the monsters in that movie he'd watched with Sheriff Coltrane. Some silly movie about zombies.

One of the prisoners who was eating Sheriff Justice got up and attacked Sheriff Lobo. He held out two fingers like he was making a hippie peace sign and stuck them in Lobo's eyes. Lobo screamed as the dead man pushed his fingers all the way in. Then the zombie slid his thumb into Lobo's mouth, cutting off his screams. The ghoul then used all three digits to pull out the middle of Lobo's face with a wet ripping sound!

Sheriff Lobo dropped faster than a crack whore who just got promised her fix. The zombie prisoner moaned with delight and put his dead clammy hand in the hole where Lobo's face used to be. He pulled out a bunch of brains and slurped them up like strawberry jello.

Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane stood unsteadily on legs quaking with fright and tried not to think of the huge turds in his pants. The convicts were all moving towards the racetrack except for the one who was eating Sheriff Lobo's brains. Rosco tried to get away but something was holding onto his leg. It was Boss Hogg and he was looking pretty dead. Just like the monsters in that stupid movie Redneck Zombies!

Rosco lost his balance and fell down. "Don't hurt me little dead buddy!" he cried.

But Boss Hogg was one of the undead and as such, couldn't be swayed by a little pleading! Rosco pulled his gun and said his prayers. Both to God and Jefferson Davis!

The Boss Hogg zombie lurched forward and bit a big, meaty chunk out of Rosco's calf. He swallowed it but the stringy, bloody meat popped out of the hole in his throat and quivered on the ground like a beached fish. The pain drove Rosco to do the impossible: he shot Boss Hogg in the head! Hogg's skull exploded like a watermelon at a Gallagher concert. Rosco didn't think the thunder of the shot would ever stop rumbling.

Rosco was growing faint from loss of blood. He heard a shuffling noise. The convict who had killed Sheriff Lobo was coming at him. With trembling hands Rosco pointed his gun at the drooling ghoul and pulled the trigger. A hole opened in the zombie's forehead and out gushed brains and black, goopy blood. A dead shot! The walking dead man toppled to the ground and lay still!

"Figures. Now that I'm a dead man I finally start shooting straight!" Rosco whispered hoarsely. Then he saw the most pathetic sight he'd ever seen. Sheriff Justice, legless and armless, was squirming around like a worm on a hook. He looked at Rosco with vacant eyes and snapped his teeth hungrily.

"Hate to put down a fellow Sheriff!" muttered Rosco as he planted a bullet in Justice's head, putting him out of his dead misery.

Sheriff Lobo was dead too. But with no brains he seemed like he was going to stay dead. Rosco figured that out all by himself. Then he did the bravest thing he was ever going to do. He put the barrel of his gun in his mouth. He understood that like Boss Hogg and Sheriff Justice, he'd been bitten and would become a zombie after he died.

"Goodbye Flash!" cried Roscoe as he pulled the trigger. His brains flew through the air and pattered to the ground like chunks of hamburger.

Out on the racetrack the Dukes and Bandit and the other drivers were waiting for the flag to drop when they heard the shots and the screams. At first they thought the noise was firecrackers but then they saw the orange-clad convicts emerge from underneath the stands. Some of the them were covered in blood and were carrying body parts. Human body parts!

That was why people were screaming!

"They're escaped prisoners, boys!" shouted Bandit, "And it looks like they mean business!" The flagman dropped the flag and ran away, screaming like a little French pansy.

The driver next to the Dukes was named Ernest P. Worrell. he was a gangly man who drove a beat up old car that everyone knew didn't stand a chance of winning the race. The other drivers had laughed at him but he was braver than he looked.

"Let's do something fellas!" shouted Ernest over the screaming, "Know what I mean?"

Ernest grabbed a wrench from his car and ran at the bloodthirsty convicts. One of the maddened prisoners tried to grab him but Ernest whacked him on the head as hard as he could. The man's brains squirted out his ears like toothpaste from a tube. Then the other convicts jumped on Ernest like drunk Mexicans fighting over the last Corona at a fiesta. They busted poor Ernest open like he was a pinata and went after his guts like they were candy. Poor Ernest!

Bo and Luke looked at each other. They could see nothing of Ernest P. Worrell except for the occasional bloody scrap of clothing that came flying out from the massed horde of convicts surrounding the hapless driver. Suddenly Ernest's head shot out like a bloody cannonball, landing on the hood of the General Lee with a thump!

Ernest's battered head rolled off the hood and plopped in the dirt, leaving a smear of blood and brains on the General Lee. Bo and Luke were horrified. There was a dent in the General Lee's hood! "Okay, now I'm ticked off!" said Luke, "Killing Ernest was bad enough but now they've messed with the General!"

Bo Duke used an old shirt to wipe Ernest P. Worrell's blood and brains off the General Lee but he couldn't wipe away the dent. He covered Ernest's head with the shirt and said a quick prayer. Quick because he was as furious as his brother. With grim resolve Luke picked out a tire iron and Bo grabbed a crowbar like he had a pair.

"Let's get them dirty killers and desecrators!" Luke shouted.

Bandit had fetched a shotgun from the trunk of his car and was ready to kick ass with the Dukes! Bandit pumped the shotgun. "Let's get 'em!" he yelled, "Let's get those bastards!"

Most of the other drivers had run away like Republicans from a recruiting officer but a few stayed behind to help fight and so did B.J. McKay. There was Jethro Bodine from Beverly Hills who drove a souped-up jalopy and H.I. McDunnough who was a first time driver and the famous Nascar driver Ricky Bobby. There was also a mean son of a bitch named Doyle Hargraves. Nobody liked him but they could tell he would be good in a fight.

Then there was a man who called himself Joe Dirt. He wasn't even in the race. He was just a lowly janitor but he sure was willing to fight! He broke his mop handle in two, leaving both ends jagged like spears. He was ready for war!

It was now obvious that the escaped prisoners were crazy because they were eating people! Ernest P. Worrel was only the first. The cannibalistic convicts had netted a few spectators too slow to get away. Most of the victims were senior citizens on a field trip from their retirement home. The convicts didn't seem too happy with old people flesh. Maybe they preferred fresh meat?

A couple of little kids were also gobbled down as well as a wheezy fat lady who was bigger than Boss Hogg. The deranged prisoners had to dig through all her fat to get to her guts and it was pretty disgusting what with all those chunks of fat flying everywhere! Luke Duke felt sick to his stomach, like the time he'd seen Lulu Hogg in a bikini, but worse.

Joe Dirt went on the offensive. He ran up and speared a convict with one end of his mop handle but the man just stood there munching on kid brains while his innards spilled out. "Damn, we got ourselves some zombies!" screamed Joe. Then he took his other spear and rammed it up through the zombie's throat and into its brains.

The zombie convict said something akin to "Urrg!" and fell down dead forever.

"Hey guys!" shouted Joe, "You have to get their brains like in the movies!" But Joe had let his attention wander and a couple of zombies grabbed him and pulled open his rib cage like it was the only Chrismas present in a family with a dozen kids. They ate his lungs and heart and liver and smacked their zombie lips over how good his insides tasted. Poor Joe Dirt!

The zombie convicts now had the scent of blood and surged towards the remaining drivers like hounds after a rabbit.

"Split up and fight 'em in small groups!" screamed Bandit.

Bandit and Bo Duke jagged to the left while Doyle Hargraves and Jethro Bodine met the zombies head on. H.I. McDunnough and Ricky Bobby went to the right. Luke Duke and B.J. and Bear headed towards B.J.'s truck but they were blocked by a phalanx of ghouls and had to split up.

"Get to your truck and run 'em over!" yelled Luke, "I'll hold them for you!" B.J. gave Luke a thumbs up, grabbed Bear and headed for his Kenworth real quick like. He didn't see his friend get overrun by the zombies. Was it the end for Luke Duke?

Meanwhile the other drivers steeled themselves for what they expected to be the most epic battle in the history of the world!

Doyle Hargraves didn't care about Ernest and Joe getting killed because he was a sadistic asshole who just loved beating the hell out of people! He grabbed a shovel (probably left behind by some illegal Mexican landscaper he figured) and started splitting open zombie heads. He was high on killing!

Jethro Bodine was right behind Doyle. Jethro was a big guy but dumb and he tried to fight the zombies with his bare hands. He grabbed one zombie convict and smashed its head into the pavement, splitting its skull open like a walnut. Brains sprayed out all over the ground like one of those fancy paintings he'd seen in a Hollywood art gallery.

"I'm gonna need a swim in the cement pond after this!" laughed Jethro. Then he felt something bite his arm and he cursed his luck. He'd been bitten by a zombified Joe Dirt!

Doyle Hargraves saw what had happened and smacked Jethro on the head as hard as he could. Jethro's eyes shot out of his skull and rolled on the ground like dice while his brains oozed out his eye sockets.

The game was over for Jethro Bodine! He was deader than a possum run over by a tank! Then Doyle swung his shovel and plumb took off Joe Dirt's head with it. He laughed when Joe's head landed in a trash can! "Two points!" he cackled.

B.J. McKay got in his truck and gunned the engine. "Let's roll, Bear!" he shouted. Bear climbed into the truck and pulled the cord that operated the air horn. He threw a banana peel at the zombies and hooted. The banana peel had absolutely no effect on the zombies!

B.J. put the truck in drive and ran over a group of ghouls who were pigging out at the Bodine buffet. Some of the zombies split open like rotten fruit under B.J.'s wheels but then his damn brakes locked up. At least a dozen more zombies took the opportunity to climb up on the truck! B.J. and Bear were in trouble!

Bear got scared and lit out like a white trash momma going to the dollar store on welfare day.

"Get back in here, Bear!" cried B.J.

But it was too late for B.J. McKay! The zombies reached in the cab and pulled his head off like you'd pull a cork out of a jug of moonshine only the moonshine that squirted out of B.J. was red! While he was being eaten alive Bear sat on the roof of the truck and chucked more banana peels at the zombies. Chimps were useless in a fight with zombies!

Just as B.J. McKay was getting turned into zombie chow, H.I. McDunnough and Ricky Bobby found themselves trapped. They were standing on the roof of Ricky's car and were surrounded by the living dead! "I reckon we're toast." declared H.I. as he lobbed a spare tire into the zombie horde. The tire stove in the skull of one of the zombies but there was still plenty to go around.

"We ain't screwed yet." said Ricky as the zombies closed in and pawed at their legs.

Ricky Bobby kicked a ghoul in the head and reached down real fast into his car and pulled out a can of gasoline. "Got a light?" he asked H.I. as he doused the zombies.

H.I. did have a light and flicked his Bic. The zombies lit up like crosses at a Klan rally and H.I. and Ricky Bobby did a high five and shouted "Hell yeah!" Then they pinched their noses because the burning zombie flesh stunk so bad. Smelled worse than a skunk family reunion they would later joke.

Bandit fired off his last shell and hooted as a zombie head blew apart like a water balloon. He had wasted most of his shells before he found out that Joe Dirt's words were true. That you had to destroy a zombie's brain in order to kill it which is what these convicts were. Zombies! Hard to believe but it was true!

Fighting beside Bandit was Bo Duke. He took his crowbar and rammed it through the top of a zombie's skull but it got stuck and the zombie fell back into a crowd of ghouls who were coming on faster than a cop on the last donut in the box. Bo's crowbar was lost! Then Bandit broke his shotgun bashing out another zombie's brains. Bo and Bandit backpedaled so they could regroup. Was it too late for them? Would they end up like B.J., Jethro and the others?

Then Luke ran up and joined Bo and Bandit. "Sorry, got a little sidetracked!" He was breathing heavy and obviously scared but he still held his tire iron which was caked with zombie gore. He stuck it in a zombie's eye socket and twirled it around. "Look!" he said with a cackle, "I made a blender out of his skull!"

Luke pulled the tire iron free and gave another zombie a good whack, splitting its head open like a can of rotten Pillsbury dough! Then they were surrounded!

"Well Dukes, it's the end for us!" said Bandit, "I just wish I had a beer!"

Bo and Luke looked at each other dejectedly. They were seconds away from a grisly death. They would miss Daisy and uncle Jesse and Cooter and even that goofy Deputy Enos. They hoped their cousins Coy and Vance would help uncle Jesse on the farm.

Suddenly the zombies started to fall away one by one! It was Doyle Hargraves! He was thumping zombies left and right with his bloodstained shovel. Blood and pieces of bone and brains flew everywhere! It reminded Bo of the time when he was a kid and threw a dead piglet in a woodchipper. He'd gotten sick and threw up and never did it again.

Wait! There were a couple of other guys fighting with Doyle! One was busting open zombie heads with a big hickory stick! The other one was whaling on the zombies with a two-by-four!

The zombies couldn't stand up to such a pummeling, especially after Luke rejoined the fight with his tire iron. Pretty soon the ground was littered with dead and broken zombies. Luke felt bad for the ones whose spinal cords were broken so he bashed in all their skulls so they would finally know peace. It was a dirty, bloody buisness.

When Luke was done he dropped his tire iron in the dirt and swore to himself to never use it again.

The big man leaned on his bloodied hickory stick and held out his hand. "I'm Sheriff Buford T. Pusser," he said, "And this man over here is my friend Philo Beddoe." Luke shook Pusser's hand and did the same with Beddoe. He waved to H.I. McDunnough and Ricky Bobby who had also survived.

"You fellas sure showed up at a good time!" exclaimed Luke. Then he introduced them to Bo and Bandit and pointed out H.I. and Ricky Bobby who were trying to extricate themselves from a mass of charred zombie corpses. Luke waved his hand as the stench of burnt ghoul rolled over him like one of Cooter's beer farts. "I don't suppose you can tell us what the heck is going on?" he asked Pusser.

Sheriff Pusser waited for H.I. McDunnough and Ricky Bobby to join them. Then he spoke solemnly. "It seems a couple of my fellow sheriffs and some fella named Boss Hogg were plotting to ruin this here race by using these convicts to bust it up. They didn't figure on the men being zombies so I guess their plan bit them in their asses."

Beddoe chimed in. "Yeah, they're all dead. Back there under the stands. They died messy."

Pusser shrugged. "I just wish my buddy Hannibal and his men were here. They would have made short work of those zombies." He cocked his head as his ear caught the sound of approaching sirens. "But it looks like we got the job done just fine." Then he took his hickory stick and bashed in the head of a still twitching zombie that Luke had missed.

Luke Duke let out an exasperated sigh. "We should have known Hogg was behind this! He sure won't be missed!"

Bo nodded his approval and said "Hell yeah! Burn in hell, Boss Hogg!"

Doyle Hargraves kicked at a pile of zombie guts. "Bah! I'm out of here!" he grumbled, "I'm going home to see my girl Linda. I hear there's a retard been bothering her!" Then, without so much as a goodbye, he got into his car and roared off.

"That man sure is a dick!" said Bandit, "I hope somebody teaches him some manners!"

Up on B.J.'s truck Bear hooted and showered the survivors with banana peels.

Bandit stared in amazement. There was another monkey with Bear! "Where the hell did that other monkey come from?" he wondered aloud.

Philo Beddoe grinned and said "Oh, that's my buddy Clyde! He rides shotgun in my truck!"

Bandit scratched his head. Two truckers with monkeys? Well, in a world with zombies he guessed that wasn't too much of a stretch!

Whap!

Bear had scored a bullseye with another banana peel!

Bandit picked up his hat and shouted "Stop that you damn monkey or I'll send you to a zoo!"

Bear hopped down off the truck, waddled over to Bandit and gave him a hug.

Bo Duke laughed. "Guess there's a new member of the Bandit family!"

Even Buford T. Pusser smiled at that.

Bandit scratched Bear's head. "Well, I guess you can ride shotgun with my buddy Cledus!" he said, "But only if you fetch us those beers from my car!"

Bear scooted over to the open trunk of Bandit's car where he retrieved a cold case of Coors. He sure knew what the word "beer" meant!

"Who's up for a cold one?" asked Bandit with a whorehouse grin.

"We are!" cried Bo and Luke Duke and H.I. McDunnough and Ricky Bobby and Philo Beddoe.

The barest hint of a smile crossed Sheriff Pusser's face. He didn't like to smile twice in one day and it had been a very bad day. "I reckon I'll have one," he said, "Maybe even two."

And so they all sat down and drank ice cold beer, never minding all the dead bodies and crying women and the sirens of police cars and ambulances. They drank to the memories of Joe Dirt and Ernest P. Worrel and Jethro Bodine and B.J. McKay. Hell, they even let Bear and Clyde partake.

Meanwhile, in a trash can not too far away, Joe Dirt's head lay in wait. Soon the horror would begin again. Just one bite was all it would take!

THE END?

Coming soon: The A-Team and Friends Vs. the Living Dead!

Another Cletus J. Ridgerunner epic!