Reynold nods his head, closing his eye. “Yeah, I got you,” he says just above a whisper.
“Don’t worry about me, Rey. You just keep walking. I’ll find my way back to you.”
“G’night, Div . . .” Reynold whimpers, slipping into unconsciousness.
“Bye, Rey.”
The night gulps.
THIRTEEN
THE RED RAIN
IT is standing over me, breathing down my neck. There is evil in ITs eyes, but it’s not for me. The red rain splashes against and runs down ITs purple skin in tiny streams. It’s almost beautiful.
The chime of a bell tower echoes in the distance. The illuminated clock on the outside of the tower is clearly visible, even through the rain. A quarter till midnight.
IT sees the clock. There is worry in ITs eyes, but it’s not over me. There is a white glow coming out from ITs chest. Out from the glow comes a voice.
Go. Now. Run.
IT turns away from me.
Go. Now. Run.
IT goes. It runs.
Go.
But somehow I can still . . .
Now.
. . .hear ITs voice.
Run.
FOURTEEN
THE GRAVE OF THE ELDER
Vandenboom sits in the middle of the desert, waiting. The quad-bike resting beneath him rumbles and growls, eliminating the silence the desert usually keeps. Spiked in the sand before him are four shovels. The sand beside the shovels is stained with a splash of red paint. It marks a grave. The grave of an ancient Edokko elder.
There is a faint thunder in the distance. Vandenboom turns the key in the ignition and kills the motor.
They’re here.
● ● ●
Reynold awakens, not knowing how much time has passed since his fall. All he knows is that it is now daylight and Vandenboom is gone. In fact, the piles of car parts are gone as well. He jumps to his feet, staggering backwards. The blow to the head still has him a little off-kilter.
Pete still sits in the front seat of the blue Caddy. His meat is now a darkened brown from the heat. He smells delicious. Reynold makes his way over to the Caddy.
“It’s ’bout fucking time, man! Purple took off hours ago!” Pete screams. Reynold examines Pete. He’s a bit crispy. “What’s that shit on your face there?”
Reynold touches his face. Red crust has hardened around his eye. He wipes it clean from his face.
“Vandenboom,” Reynold says.
“What?”
“Purple’s name is Vandenboom. How long have I been out?” Reynold tears a bit of jerky from Pete’s lower half.
“Excuse me? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I need that!”
“Petey Boy, I’m facking starved!” Reynold pops the chunk into his mouth. “Oh god, Pete, you taste awful.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, you’ve been out for a few days. I can’t be exact. I’ve lost count.”
“A few days?! Really? No wonder I feel like shit.”
“What the hell happened to you anyway?”
“It spoke to me, Pete! Only it wasn’t Vandenboom that spoke to me, it was Divey.”
“Divey? Ha, you’ve lost it, kid! Divey’s a goner. You saw what that bastich did to him. He ripped him apart!”
“I swear it, Pete, it was Divey. No mistaking it.” Reynold rips off another chunk of Pete’s meat. “Last one, I promise.”
“Did you hear him before or after you whacked your skull?”
“Both.”
“. . .”
“Don’t you at least want to know what he told me?”
“Oh, do tell . . .” Pete sighs.
“He told me to go home. That the road ahead was too dangerous. He said that he could take care of himself.”
“Great! Then let’s be on our way.”
“But I know how to save him.”
“Oh, you can’t save yourself.”
“No, really, I know. It’s in ’ere.” Reynold points to his chest. “Divey is in that thing’s . . . chestal area.”
“Chestal area?”
“You know, right in the middle of everythin’. All we have to do is rip him out.”
“And how do you know this?”
“It was in a dream.”
“Rey, let’s go home.”
“Fack that, I’m gonna go rescue my brother.”
“Look man, you’ve been out in the sun too long. You’re stressed. You just lost a loved one. You’re dehydrated, hungry, weak, and not to mention, you just fucking bumped your head and recently came out of a short coma. You physically aren’t able to handle taking that thing down!”
“I feel fine, Pete, really.”
“Fine? Really, you’re fine? You’re talking to a fucking pile of meat!”
“I’m leaving. You don’t have to come with me.”
Pete looks around. “What else am I supposed to do? Rot in this piece of shit car, alone? Fuck man, I guess I don’t really have a choice.”
“Well, come on then. We need to find transportation.” Reynold scoops Pete up in his arms.
● ● ●
The dust kicks up and hides all traces of the sun as the Damned Dirt Devils ride in.
VEGA
Vega has green skin and a yellow X painted over his left eye. He is tall and slender—great for getting into those hard to reach places. He is a skilled swordsman as well as a mixed martial artist. He drives a yellow dragster with the engine exposed and loves Granny Smith apples.
KREBB
The red-skinned Krebb stands about six feet tall and nearly just as wide. He has a receding hairline and his mane grows like fire all around his face, except for his chin, which is totally hairless. He likes to smoke thick cigars and finger his weapon of choice, the KREBBOOM—a large gun that resembles a vegetable blender and requires no ammo. Simply load any object into the chamber and, with the pull of the trigger, the object is cloned and sent hurling through the target’s skull at a bone-shattering speed. His ride is an old police car from the 1930s with a souped up engine and flames painted across the front and side panels. Justice will be served.
GLUUM
Gluum is an arachnid in a humanoid body. She has long white hair, black skin, and her hands sparkle like the night sky. She literally has the universe in her hands. She rides a shiny chrome bike with metal wheels and lets her fingers do most of the talking.
T-DAKK
T-Dakk suffers from a rare disorder that has rendered his legs useless. But what he lacks in physical ability, he makes up with mental strength. T-Dakk is head of weapons command. He has engineered, constructed, and perfected over thirty-eight different weapons, including the KREBBOOM. T-Dakk rides around in a heavy duty murderball wheelchair and drives an old Japanese-style van that has been modified to accommodate his every need.
Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils leave their rides and crowd around the grave of the ancient elder. The Damned Dirt Devils drop to their knees and bow before the grave. Vandenboom hoists the shovels out of the dirt and tosses them to the ground.
“Dig.”
FIFTEEN
DOOM MAGNETIC
“You just have to trust me!” Reynold yells at Pete. “This is the only way we’re going to get out of here in time!”
“The shit I do for you, kid,” Pete sighs. A tightly tied black fishing net is wrapped around him.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll be over here waiting, just be still and quiet, okay?”
“Okay, okay. Go already.”
Reynold runs back behind one of the scrap heaps and picks out a thin strip of paper from the rubbish. He places it between his thumbs, cups his hands together, and blows through it. A high-pitched squawk emanates and echoes through the heap. After a few calls, he is finally successful. An ostrich pokes its head out from behind one of the junk stacks, catching a whiff of its dinner. It eyes Pete carefully for several moments, before advancing. Once it becomes brave enough to step out, Reynold sneaks up behind it and rings the metal rim he�
�d removed from the fishing net around its head and neck. He leaps up onto its back, snatching up Pete in the process. The ostrich rears back and squawks with fury.
“Ha! We did it!” Reynold yells. He smacks the bird’s arse and leads it to follow the deep tire tracks imprinted in the sand. “Divey, here we come, brother!”
● ● ●
“I hit something boss!” Krebb yells from down deep in the grave. He thrusts the shovel beneath the casket and pries it loose from the earth’s grasp. The Damned Dirt Devils haul the coffin out of the grave and drop it on the hot sand. Krebb takes his shovel and cracks into the wooden top. He tosses the shovel aside and begins to pry back the wooden slats, snapping them off in pieces until the casket is completely open. They all cover their noses and mouths as the stench of decay pollutes the air around them.
The body inside is headless and draped in a blood-stained kimono. Buried along with it are two items, a large wooden staff and a cracked cue-ball. Krebb picks up the cue-ball.
“Holy shit, boss! It’s his fucking eye!” he yells, showing it to the others. “Ha, to think that I’m holding Master Qoser’s cue-ball eye in my hands!” The others want to hold it too, but Krebb refuses to share.
“Out of my way . . .” Vandenboom orders, pushing Krebb aside. He picks up a shovel and hoists it high above his head—the blade end shimmers in the sunlight. He brings the blade down with such force that it severs Qoser’s right arm just below the elbow. He picks up the arm. Its skin has the texture of a raisin. A smile forms at the corner of his mouth.
“Ready to go home, Devils?!” he shouts. The Devils throw their fists into the air and cheer. Vandenboom spreads his legs and crouches into the same position he had always seen Qoser in, just before he would tear into the Doom Magnetic. The Doom Magnetic is a void in time and space that allows one to travel anywhere, any place in an instant. Vandenboom bends the fingers down and straightens the pinky finger out, again, just as Qoser had always done.
“Brace yourselves,” he warns, howling as he slowly rips into the Doom Magnetic. But to his surprise, nothing happens. He tries it again . . . and again. Still nothing.
“FUCK!” He hurls the arm into the air. He jumps down on Qoser’s corpse, grabs it by the collar of his kimono, and begins shouting, cursing at it.
“Uh, boss?” T-Dakk says.
“WHAT?!” Vandenboom shouts, dropping Qoser back down into his casket.
“Check it out . . .” T-Dakk points. About twenty feet in the distance floats Qoser’s hand.
They all run out to examine this oddity. The pinky is missing completely. It has pierced through the Doom Magnetic and is now stuck in the air like a dart in a dartboard. Vandenboom grabs the floating forearm and pulls it down. In an instant, the Doom Magnetic tears open and a powerful vacuum begins to suck in everything in sight.
“Hurry, we have to get through before it closes!” Vandenboom shouts. The Devils hop in their vehicles. Krebb tosses Qoser’s cue-ball eye into his glove compartment. They fire their ignitions and, one by one, drive into the Doom Magnetic.
● ● ●
“What the fack is that, man?” Reynold yells, pointing at the large black hole in the distance.
“Fuck if I know, but look, there’s your boy and it looks like he’s about to drive through the goddamn thing!” Pete shouts.
They watch as Vandenboom and the Damned Dirt Devils drive into the void. After a few seconds, the void begins to shrink.
“Shit man, I think it’s closing! We have to go faster!” Reynold begins kicking at the sides of the ostrich, pulling at its feathers, anything he can think of to get the bird sprinting.
It works.
They dive into the void, which closes around them at the waist. On the other side there are bright lights, wet streets, and tall buildings. A city. A big city.
Reynold grabs the only thing within his reach, the pole of a streetlamp, and heaves. Him, Pete, and the ostrich all slop out of the void and tumble to the wet street below.
They know exactly where they are. They’re in the biggest city on the entire Planet Japan.
SIXTEEN
TOKYO!
Jools Dethbryte sits on the top floor of THE BLITZ, a 178-story building towering over Tokyo. She admires the beauty of the city from above. However, she is not really ‘sitting’, per se—more like lying on a large circular bed. And she is not really a ‘she’ either, more like an it. She doesn’t have any sex organs. Not a one. She doesn’t even have legs, just one short, fat tongue of skin extending out from her waist. She is a space slug—or an Edokkolug, to be exact. She prefers to be called a she, even though her voice is clearly masculine.
“So sorry to bother you,” a small Japanese man says, as he speed-walks into the room, “but have you been watching the news?” Ironically, the man speaks quite effeminately.
“No, I haven’t, blah. I’ve been admiring the view. You know that’s what I like to do after my scrubbing, blah!” Dethbryte croaks, slow and low. “Why?”
“Ah, ah, ah. Just see for yourself!” The man picks up the remote for the television and aims it at the wall. The wall hums and suddenly an image appears across it.
“—happened around three o’clock this morning in downtown Tokyo. Eye-witness reports state that eight figures passed through the Doom Magnetic before it closed. Five of them have been identified as Doon Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils—yes, you are hearing me right—Doon Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils seem to have returned to Tokyo. The other three have yet to be identified,” says the news anchorman. A series of cell phone pictures flash on the screen showing Vandenboom and his crew blazing down the streets in their vehicles. At the bottom of the screen, a red banner reads: ‘BREAKING NEWS: VANDENBOOM RETURNS! DOOM MAGNETIC ALIVE AND WELL!’
Dethbryte narrows her eyes, but doesn’t shy them away from the television screen. “This can’t be! Krumm, how the fuck can this be, blah?!”
“Well, it appears as if your television prison wasn’t enough to hold him, my dear,” Krumm says, smirking.
“Oh, don’t try and pin all of this on me, blah! You liked the television idea, too!”
“Yes, but you used such a fucking ancient television! I was the one who suggested we use one of the newer models, but noooo, you didn’t want to fork over the cash! You get what you pay for, cheapskate. I hope you’re happy.”
“How many times do we have to go through this, blah? The newer models are too thin! We wouldn’t have been able to cram him inside, even if we stuck a broomstick in his ass!”
“What? How does a broomstick in his ass help anything?”
“You know what I mean, blah.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean. Shoving a stick up his ass does what exactly?”
“It helps with the cramming.”
“What is it that you are cramming? I mean, we zapped his spirit into a TV using lightning rods!”
“It’s a figure of speech. Look, you know what I mean, blah. Fucking shut it!”
Krumm purses his lips out and rocks his hips angrily before turning his back to her, again focusing his attention on the television screen.
“He was all like big and purple and *bleep*. I mean, he still looks the same. Big teeth and *bleep*. Scary as hell,” an eye-witness reports. “And what about the others, the ones that came after the Damned Dirt Devils? Any idea of who they might be?” the reporter asks. Pictures of Reynold, Pete, and the ostrich scroll across the screen. “I don’t *bleep* know, man, but one of ’em was a *bleep*-ing pile of meat . . .”
“Pause it, blah. Hurry!” Dethbryte orders. Krumm closes his eyes, annoyed at the request, but obeying regardless. He holds the remote up and presses the pause button. The screen freezes on the picture of Reynold, Pete, and the ostrich.
“Bring them to me!” Dethbryte commands.
“Them? Really? Why?” Krumm asks.
Dethbryte’s eyes immediately change colors—the left bright red and the right a deep purple. “I said bring the
m to me or I’ll be cramming a broomstick up your ass!” she screams, pink saliva spraying in all directions.
The Brothers Crunk Page 4