Tijuana Donkey Showdown

by Adam Howe

  Donnie crouched beside the charred storekeeper. He took off his coat and smothered the flames of the man’s burning cardigan. Wrestling the key hoop from his belt, Donnie juggled the red-hot keys, yelping as they scorched his palms. Wrapping his coat around his hand like an oven glove, he unlocked the STAFF ONLY door to reveal another locked door marked DELIVERY, and stairs leading down to the basement. Donnie knelt in front of the second door and sorted through the jumble of keys, trying to find the key that would fit the lock—

  Something squeaked behind him.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the storekeeper staggering to his feet. His face was flame-grilled hamburger. The night-goggles were melted onto his head like devil horns. He propped himself up in the doorway, smoke coiling from the scorched rags of his cardigan. Before Donnie could stand, the Arab lunged at him, slamming the shotgun across his throat, pinning him back against the door. The fire had fused the shotgun to his hands. The melted flesh of his fingers was webbed across the stock as he crushed Donnie’s larynx.

  Choking, Donnie grappled the shotgun and shoved the guy back. They stumbled across the landing, tumbling down the stone steps and thudding onto the concrete floor of the basement. Landing on top of Donnie, the storekeeper jammed the shotgun back across his throat and pressed down with all his weight. Donnie spluttered and bucked, the key hoop in his hand jangling wildly as he flailed at the man’s face before he slammed a long mortise key through the left lens of the Arab’s night-goggles, driving it deep into the eye socket. He then wrenched the key in the man’s eyeball like he was forcing open a rusty lock.

  The storekeeper gave a hog-like squeal. His head jerked back, the keys dangling from his face like bloody jewelry. Yolky yellow gunk gushed from the shattered lens of his goggles, spraying across Donnie’s face. Gagging, Donnie hammered the heel of his hand against the key, burying it deeper in the Arab’s eye. The storekeeper shrieked, lurching to his feet and staggering blindly about the basement. Donnie scrabbled back across the floor, spitting eyeball fluid and heaving for breath.

  The Arab crashed against a stock shelf, cans and jars clattering and smashing on the floor around him. He reached up to remove the keys from his eye, before realizing he couldn’t—not with the shotgun welded to his hands. His arms twitched pathetically. Once, twice … Then all the fight seemed to drain right out of him. His body sagged, and he slumped down on a camp bed parked against the cinderblock wall, the springs squealing like his squeaky shoes.

  Huddled on the bed, the man glowered at Donnie with his one good eye, the other a ruined hollow of red and yellow slime. He slowly raised his left knee. Donnie watched in disbelief as the man planted the sole of his shoe against the length of the shotgun and sucked a few shallow breaths … before he flexed his leg and the melted flesh of his palms ripped free from the stock with a sound like Velcro tearing. The shotgun clattered to the floor in front of him, but he was too weak to reach for it.

  With raw and bloody hands, the Arab grasped the hoop of keys dangling from his face. Donnie covered his mouth with his hand—nearly begged the guy to stop—but he couldn’t look away. The Arab yanked on the key hoop. The key ripped from his eye socket with a wet popping sound. He gave a yelp and fainted dead away, flopping back on the camp bed with the keys clutched tightly in his fist.

  Donnie almost fainted himself; his head was spinning as he staggered to his feet. He peeled off his ski mask and covered his nose and mouth to keep from choking on the thick black smoke belching down into the basement through the open trapdoor above them. Fiery ash rained down onto the mattress. It wouldn’t be long before the fire spread downstairs. Already the basement was baking like a pizza oven.

  He took a wary step towards the storekeeper, eyeing the keys clutched in the man’s fist. It looked like the guy was out for the count. All it took was getting burned half to death, blasted into a wall, thrown down a staircase and stabbed in the eye. But Donnie wasn’t about to take any chances. This guy was like the fucking Terminator.

  He kicked the shotgun beyond the Arab’s reach. It skidded across the floor and clanged against the legs of a workbench. Donnie paused when he noticed some kind of photo shrine on the wall above the workbench.

  The cluster of photos showed a young woman. The storekeeper’s wife, Donnie figured. She was beautiful (even in a burning building, Donnie could appreciate a piece of ass) and very pregnant. Beneath the shrine sat a chunky security monitor—but it wasn’t showing the store go up in flames. Instead it was hooked to an old VCR player running a short loop of silent film.

  The grainy black and white footage was timecoded in the bottom corner, dated six years ago. It showed the storekeeper’s pregnant wife as she stood in terror behind the shop counter. She was opening the cash register for a jittery punk wearing a stocking mask that mashed his features. He was clutching a pistol in a sideways gangsta-grip. The cash drawer slid open. The punk’s pistol spat fire. The back of the woman’s long hair flailed as her brains splattered the cigarette rack. Bloody cartons of smokes rained from the rack in a waterfall. The woman crumpled to the floor. Leaning over the counter, the punk raided the cash register, pocketing bills as he fled the store.

  The footage looped and played again. And again.

  Donnie looked at the cushioned chair parked in front of the monitor, the cushion cratered by the weight of the husband, and the weight of the grief pressing down on him. How long had the storekeeper sat here? Hour after hour … day after day … watching again and again as his pregnant wife was gunned down by a two-bit stickup man. A piece of shit like Donnie.

  Before the footage could loop and play again, Donnie switched off the monitor. He saw his reflection in the blank TV screen, and was about to look away in shame, sickened at the sight of himself. Then something in the screen’s reflection caught his eye. A sudden movement behind him.

  He wheeled around in time to see the storekeeper swinging a fire extinguisher by the hose like a mace-and-chain. The metal butt of the fire extinguisher scythed across his jaw, smashing teeth and bone, and Donnie dropped like he’d been shot, like the storekeeper’s wife, out cold before he hit the deck.

  * * *

  When he came to, Donnie found himself facedown on the cracked concrete floor. His ankles and wrists were bound tightly with duct tape, hogtied behind him. He raised his throbbing head weakly off the floor. A rope of congealed blood drooled from his mouth, puddling like black treacle on the concrete. His vision blurred in and out of focus, but he could see he was still in the basement.

  The room was fogged with smoke that was starting to clear. The fire upstairs had been extinguished. The storekeeper must have doused the flames while Donnie was unconsciousness. Donnie listened intently for the wail of EMS sirens outside. Surely someone must have reported World War III breaking out in the KWIK STOP. But all he could hear was the sound of someone digging.

  A section of the basement’s concrete floor had been broken, probably by the sledgehammer propped against the wall, a slab of stone levered up to reveal the dirt below. The storekeeper was using a shovel to dig a hole in the plot of earth, piling up the dirt beside a steel drum with a skull and crossbones symbol and a label marked LYE. The Arab’s wounded hands were swathed in bandages. He grimaced in pain as he worked the shovel. Whenever the pain seemed too much to bear, he would glance at the security monitor on the workbench, watching the footage of his dying wife again, and summon the strength to continue digging.

  When he was done, he climbed from the hole and loomed over Donnie.

  Donnie tried to beg, but his shattered jaw and blood-clogged mouth allowed only a pitiful choked whimper. The Arab planted a foot on him, his shoes giving the last squeak Donnie would ever hear, as he kicked him into the grave.

  Donnie landed on his back, his bound arms and legs twisting painfully beneath him with the impact. He watched in helpless terror as the storekeeper began shoveling the dirt over him. The last thing he saw was what looked like another shrine on the wall directly abo
ve him. No photos, this time. Donnie thought this one looked less like a shrine than a trophy wall. Nailed to the cinderblocks was a stocking mask, a bandana, and three ski masks, one of them black wool, with red trim around the eyes and mouth, and not so lucky after all.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  * * *

  Forever and always the biggest thanks must go to my partner, Suzie, who, as you might have guessed, is currently standing behind me with a gun to my head. (She loves me depicting her as a ball-busting shrew. In my defense, it's the only way I can ensure she reads my books. "What have you written about me THIS time?")

  Thanks to my regular editor, 'Burro' Bill Chaney. I was tempted to publish his notes on this book. More than once he commented, "Likely the first time such a phrase has been committed to the English language." I'll leave you to imagine which phrases they were.

  Randy Chandler & Cheryl Mullenax @ Comet Press helped me bring this book across the finish line. Thanks, guys!

  The crazy talented Mike Tenebrae designed my awesome cover and promotional art. I'm almost reluctant to share him with the rest of you writers looking for art … But check him out @ www.tenebraestudios.net

  Thank you to my blurbers: Pete Kahle, Sean Costello, Ed Kurtz, Jeff Strand, Gabino Iglesias, Scott Adlerberg, Adam Cesare, and Joey Hirsch. Special fist-bump to James Newman for his endorsement, and for writing such a marvelously antagonistic foreword. Appreciate it, fellas.

  Big-up Duncan Bradshaw @ EyeCue Productions for the preorder / promo memes.

  Extra special thanks to Erin Sweet-Al Mehairi, who worked as my publicist on the recent Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet tour. Erin did an exceptional job, and I can't recommend her highly enough to other writers looking to create buzz for their books. She also introduced me to a great bunch of new friends, including: Andi 'Eagle Eyes' Rawson, Kim Deveroux (and her Horror After Dark homies), Hunter Shea, Angela Crawford, David Spell, and Rich Duncan.

  Thanks also: Paul Cook, Lex Liosatos, Mark Milan, Benoit Lelievre, Dave Wahlman, Tom Leins, Frank Errington, Gef Fox, Eric Beetner, Jason Parent, Rowena Hosean, J. David Osborne, and Max Booth III.

  The following reprobates have supported me from the get-go: Jed Ayres, Kent Gowran, Adrian Shotbolt, Dave Dubrow, Shane Keene, Nev Murray (special thanks to Nev for hosting the exclusive Tijuana Donkey Showdown cover reveal @ his Confessions of a Reviewer blog), Zachary Walters, Noelle Holten, Sarah Hardy, Dave Barnett, Chris and Rob @ The Slaughtered Bird … "I knew him when"—bragging rights for all of you.

  Shout-out to my Goodreads pals: Kelly & Mitchell, Shelby, Bill, Melki, Janie, Karl, Susan, Shayne, Still, Carlos, Jess … Too many of you fuckers to name individually—my bad to those of you I forgot!

  Lastly, thank you to my readers—it still blows my mind I even HAVE readers.

  I hope you dug Tijuana Donkey Showdown. Reach out and let me know at Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter @Adam_G_Howe. And please do me a solid and leave a wee Amazon review. Unless you thought the book sucked, in which case kindly keep the information to yourself, or recommend it to an enemy.

  Until next time …

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  * * *

  Adam Howe is a British writer of fiction and screenplays. He lives in Greater London with his partner, their daughter, and a hellhound named Gino. Writing as Garrett Addams, his short story “Jumper” was chosen by Stephen King as the winner of the international On Writing contest, and published in the paperback/Kindle editions of King’s memoir. His fiction has appeared in places like Nightmare Magazine, Thuglit, Mythic Delirium, and Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 1. He is the author of two novella collections, Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, and Black Cat Mojo. In the pipeline: the occult thriller Scapegoat, a horror/crime collaboration with Adam Cesare, and 80s action epic, One Tough Bastard. Stalk him at Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter @Adam_G_Howe.

  Author photo by Mark Milan

  ALSO BY ADAM HOWE

  Available at Amazon and many other retailers

  FOR NEWS, UPDATES, AND GIVEAWAYS, SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER AT:

  COMETPRESS.US/NEWSLETTER