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“Nina, you ruined my career.” With a tearful whisper, a
scowling McNary shredded the clothing she wore. He smiled down at the girl. Nina
whimpered and cowered before him. Blood seeped from her nose, her eye was
swelling shut, and black-and-blue marks already covered her body from the
beating McNary had given her.
McNary dragged her to her feet. He shoved her at the door.
“Go down to the pool, slut. I want to finish what you
started a week ago.” He jerked the muzzle of a small gun at the door.
“Daddy’s going to kill you for this.”
McNary snickered. “Who’s gonna tell your old daddy? I
ain’t, and neither are those security people. I told them what a hot one you
are. You got a bad-ass rep.” He followed her down the stairs to the back door.
“How you love to do it. Why,” he mocked, “you like to have ruined me, you
nimpho.” His laughter followed them out to the pool.
Benny came to a darker side of town, empty of life. Even
the trash was old, overgrown with dwarfed kudzu and young trees. The insect
shell of an ancient convertible had a forest of sweet gum rooted through its
floor.
He slowed, cutting off the fuel, and listen. Benny grinned.
Sweet silence.
Eyes watched from behind. Golden, yellow eyes and long
muzzles pointed at Benny.
A pack of wild dogs eased down the cracked pavement and
through broken buildings. They sniffed and smelled blood and lean bellies ached
a little more. Several older pups whined, pressing to the fore of the pack. The
matriarch bared her teeth, and they flattened to the rough surface, inching away
from their mother. In her ancestry, she had German Shepherd and pit bull, but
natural selection chose the looks of a coyote with a deep chest. Her mate was
larger, more wolf-like, but showing the Kabuli Wolf Hound and the feathery brown
coat of a mostly English Setter grandmother.
The back of Benny’s neck itched and shivered. Scowling,
he made a furtive glance around but could see little. A feral peach tree hung
with late fruit. Most were on the ground and eaten by animals. He snatched a few
from the tree, devouring both bitter skin and sweet flesh, then tossing the pits
at a patch of dead grass to continue the cycle of life and helping another to
live.
Dogs surrounded him on two sides now, and Grampa was
muttering and unhappy. But then, he usually was. No sense of humor. Or at least
one that Benny could understand.
“What?”
The old man was silent.
Benny took a deep breath and smelled something musky,
something bitter.
“Dog crap?” his eyes widened and just almost, he could
see the outline of their spirits crouched around him. “Oh, shit!”
He jumped on the motorcycle and kicked it down. As the old
Red Sun roared to life, the pack’s Alpha male leaped to attack. Benny punched
it in the throat, and the big dog rasped a scream through the blood and shrieking
pain in its neck and tumbled away already dead. More dogs howled, lunging
through the weeds and brush, leaping the ruins of vehicles and snapping blindly.
The motorcycle screamed away, leaving them behind to fall
on the male. A few tried to pace him only to drop behind.
The Red Sun slowed. He was low on
fuel, dangerously so. The neighborhood showed signs of habitants – human ones.
He let the motorcycle drift and kept a nervous eye on the apartment house. Some
leaned over the road. Most had a weathered cover of dead kudzu and wild grape
vines. Here and there where buildings had been burned out or torn down were
winter-blasted gardens, with the concrete flooring broken up to be used as
walls.
A few kids moved from a building. His neck started to itch.
One hand crept down to the knife sheath hanging from his crotch. A slow movement
of his head showed a dozen more behind him, watching, armed to the teeth with
clubs and knives that had blades of plastic or glass.
Putting the Red Sun in neutral, Benny pulled it up in the
stand and raised his right hand.
“All I want’s some peace and quiet. Just let me
alone.”
“Oh, you gonna have plenty of peace real soon now,
faggot. Cause I’m gonna kill you. Get offen my bike.”
The talker jumped at Benny. Benny dropped, rolled, and
lashed out with his heel. It caught the boy in the kneecap and there was an
audible crack as the leg bent the wrong way.
The other three backed away, eyes glancing at the strange
man, then to the one screaming on the floor. As one they lunged and Benny’s
feet were a blur in the dim light. They shoved at him, fell, and crawled away,
bleeding and bruised.
Snatching out a gun, one raised it. Benny heard the faint
rasp of a trigger drawing back. He looked, felt he was moving in slow motion. No
way back, so he dived and lunged up, the knife invisible. Popping slugs, the gun
flew against the wall, two of the boy’s fingers still attached. Benny loomed
up and put the hammer of his fist between the wide, terrified eyes of the other
boy. The boy crumpled, and the two still conscious tried again. Benny took one
arm, flipped the kid over his should and smashed him into the sidewalk. The
second pound a fist in Benny’s right kidney.
Fire flared in his side, Benny was thrown down, and the boy
stepped closer to finish it.
Benny snatched at the ankle of the foot planted on the
floor and yanked it to him. Arms flailing, the boy went down and Benny sprang on
top of him.
A man bellowed, “What the Name?
Here, you kids stop this gang-bangin’. I headman here. I, not punks.”
Benny snatched the boy’s head up
by the ears and rammed his head into the other’s face.
The boy shuddered and went limp.
The one with the ruined knee whimpered and passed out.
Benny sagged to the floor.
The man moved over him.
He sighed, muttering, “Boy what fight like that ain’t
no fool." A woman came up behind him. She held a sawed-off shotgun and had
the look of one who knew its value.
“Takes that boy to home?”
“Aye, woman. Where the kids?”
“Busted and beggin’ Jesus to help.” She snarled a
laugh, then put two fingers in her mouth to blast a sharp whistle. Small
children boiled up from the weeds and ruins.
“Him,” she said, pointing at Benny. “Got a warrior
spirit and ain’t to be left for the dark-side. Hear?”
A half dozen grabbed Benny, dragging him away from the
weeping fallen. More took the motorcycle, shoving it after him.
The old man’s nose wrinkled. “Guess you ‘spcts me to
wash his ol’ dang clothes?”
“Why, no, Pappy,” the woman said, her voice sweet and
gentle and with a hint of timidity. “You can wash his damned ass, though.”
The old man reared back and snorted. “Mind you tongue,
child. Ain’t too old to whup, ya know.”
In answer, she kicked the boys to their feet. “Git on
home, Junior. You, Lyle, I catch you comin’ round again I uses you ornery hide
for shoe leather. Don’t ya think be you the first, neither. You tell you daddy
I gots a shell wit’ his name on him. Hear, boy?”
“Ma’am!” Lyle hobbled away. He stopped, glanced at
the woman and the shotgun made a lazy swing in his direction. He yelped and
hobbled a lot faster.
The time was well after nine PM, according to the clock on
the wall and a nightmare held him stiff and aching. His things had been washed
and dried, but were still damp. Pulling on his clothing, Benny yawned and
stretched. He shrugged into the stiff, damp jacket and a tall, lean woman held
up a candle.
“Boy, Pappy say stay the night. Danger awaits the fool
what flees the Light.”
“I can’t,” he said, ducking his head away from the
candle. She came close and whispered.
“Aye, Lord. I gives God glory. Pappy had a dreaming.
‘Twas how we knows to be out last night.” She moved closer, peering at him
with a mixture of fearful awe and joy. “He sayin’ you the hero what the
Old-Ones they spoke of. You the man what Creator Mother sends to fight the evil
till the Cleansing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” He
glanced away, muttering, “Thanks for the help.”
Benny opened the back door with
plenty of caution. Outside, a radio whispered and crackled in the cold damp.
Benny chanced a look and dived away. Cops roamed the streets, streets where they
probably hadn’t been seen in decades. Maybe they had chased the G-sters off
the streets and into abandoned places like this, but who was going to scare off
the cops?
Benny grinned, said, “Thanks for the party.” He rolled
out the back and kicked her down, and smiled at the smooth start.
Benny glanced out over the now quiet, black streets. His
head went down in a small prayer for Downey and her son. His toe rocked the
motorcycle into first, then second and they purred down the street.
Nina Griffin was hot on his mind. Sweet, hot, and well
used. Maybe he could introduce himself. She seemed pretty interested the last
time he had gone to that place. Maybe tell her he wanted nothing in life but to
be her love slave, and would she let him worship Venus, please?
“Right,” he told the disk of the night-sun. “And her
old man will give me a room of my own. Right before the old fart calls the
Janissary Project to collect the reward.”
The moon watched Benny roll through nightmare
parts of Fantasy Land, and she smiled with hope.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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