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She stood, one hand out to Benny.
“Only if you want,” he said. “I’m bust and –“
“Just shut it, man.”
Benny arose slowly, stiff from the hospital, then the race
through the raiders’ turf. He reached out, and a liquid-warm hand took his, and
he stumbled after Sue, dazed and blinking as the hallway enclosed them in pitch
dark.
He shivered and tried to breathe, but he choked. Willin’
Chillin’ McAvoy never spooked him like this, not even the first time he did
it, ever.
At the doorway of her room, he started to sweat.
Voice creaking and hoarse, Benny said, “Sue, I –“
A sharp pain and stars exploded in his head. The pain crashed
down again, and he was thrown over Sue.
“Bastid," a woman shouted. “You hogs, a-wallowing in
your own filth. Run, Baby. I’ll hold this biker off.”
An old black woman loomed in the doorway. In younger days she
had to go an easy six-feet-tall, but now was bent with age and pain. Her hands
came up with a wire-wrapped bully club, and she shouted, her face a mask of hate.
“Ama.” Sue
screamed. “No." She threw
herself over Benny while Benny tried to protect her, only to drop to the floor
with blood running from his head.
“Please, Ama. He’s a friend. He’s the one we dreamed
of.”
The two-by-four sagged and the woman’s face went slack and
gray.
“Lord, help us, no.”
JJ shoved her away. Ama fell to the floor. and he kicked her
in the thigh.
“I’ll teach him,” JJ shouted, gloating down at Benny.
“Called the Judge, I did. He said I’d not ever be tried, defending my own
home and family from a wanted man.” He raised the Browning, and Sue screamed,
knocking the hand away.
“You little ho,” he said, staring at her, his eyes wide
with shock. His face became a mask of hate. JJ knocked her down. Sue tried to
jump up, and his foot caught her in the lower stomach, driving her up and away to
pile on the floor screaming in pain.
JJ spat at her. “Stupid. Knock some sense into you, I will,
girl.” He swung around to snarl at Benny. The Browning came up.
Still on the floor, Benny spun, staring through the pain.
Sue? She was crying. Screaming. He squinted and saw that Mack truck of a spirit,
Two Swords, pointing at a shadow in the doorway. Benny kicked, and JJ howled.
In mindless semi-automatic fire, the gun exploded three shells
that plowed and chipped the half-rotten planks of the floor and the scabby
linoleum before tumbling away.
Benny snarled and ground his teeth. He stumbled up, only to
fall to one knee. JJ backed off before he saw the kid was weak, vulnerable. He
raised his fists, and Benny rammed the sagging paunch with one shoulder. They
collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs and shouts of rage and hate.
JJ grunted. He collapsed on Benny, and the bent, old woman
loomed over them. She had the two-by-four raised in her hands and a grin that
was mostly snarl baring what remained of her teeth.
Sue moaned, and the change in the old woman was abrupt to one
of terror.
Ama dashed to Sue and threw herself down, her hands
trembling, hovering over the girl.
Voice whispered in an awe of shock, Ama said, “Oh, my
lord,”
Benny heaved the man off of him and grabbed the two-by-four.
He chanced a look at Sue and saw her huddled in a ball, her face gray under the
light copper of her skin.
“What’s up?” he shouted.
“ . . . Donno.” Ama touched Sue’s arm, and the girl
cried out. Then Ama gasped, forcing Sue’s arms down and Sue screamed.
“Let her go,” Benny roared, swinging the club.
Ama ducked under it and punched him in the knee. The leg
collapsed, and Benny threw himself back to keep from falling on Sue. Trying to
get to his feet, JJ was rammed again and slammed into the wall in the hallway.
Crawling to them, Benny held a shard of glass in one hand and
his teeth bared in a grin that swore he would do murder.
“She bleeding.” Ama snarled, nodding at Sue’s groin.
“Look.” To Sue, she crooned, “Baby? I sorry, sweety, but I got to hurt you
some. Just a little. But I got to see what the problem is.” Tears running down
her face, she pulled Sue’s hands up a few inches then undid the snaps of the
fly. Blood welled up and out.
Benny spun in a crouch but the man was gone. He smashed the
shard on the wall.
“I’m gonna cut his balls off.”
Ama shouted and Benny stopped.
“Man, get down to Maggie’s place and bring her.”
Sue whispered, “He’s new meat. Ain’t from here. A new
fish, Ama.”
Ama started to rise, but Sue clutched at her hands, and she
sank back to her knees.
“Boy,” the old woman snarled. “You a man. Like all men
useless and lazy. You knows a bar, Antone’s?”
Scowling, his chin jutting out, Benny nodded.
The old woman barked a short laugh. “Of course you do. Damn
lazy man all-ways knows where the honky-tonk be. Then get you gone, boy. Tell
‘em Sue needs help. They know where the old woman live at.”
Showing Ama every tooth in his head, he jumped out of the
room only to smash into the wall. Cursing the knee and the black fires of hell
it was making, Benny ran, hopping more than jumping, out of the house.
Ama called after him, “You see that evil man, you waste no
time playing no-account boy games,
hear? Just cut his flabby lying throat and walk on.”
A grin on his face, Benny hopped over the stoop and ran up
the road to where the black, steel door stood in moon cast shadows. He sniffed
with greed at the odor of beer and whiskey before pounding on the door.
A second story shutter grated open an inch. A man shouted,
“Go home, pendejo! We’re closed till two in the afternoon. That’s the
law.”
Benny stepped back, but the window was already closed. The
steel shutter cranked down.
He leaped back to the door pounding with both fists booming
on the steel
“Open up. It’s not for me, you ass. Sue is
hurt. She’s bleeding to death, and I need Maggie.”
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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