Heaven, Hell, or Houston

by Erb, Thom

  “Sorry. I’ll give Jimbo your order. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

  Her face was far redder than the ketchup bottle. I instantly regretted the way I glared at her and felt like a world-class piece of shit.

  She meant well. She always does. It was just that I was getting damn tired of beating myself up. I didn’t need anyone else helping my quick decline into the dark realms of self-loathing and pity-goddamn-parties. I tried to stop her and apologize, but she was already passed the college kids.

  Dammit it, McCutcheon, I cursed myself. The marathon of fucked-up-ness continued. I grabbed the bottle, stood up, and fumbled through my pockets for change. The whiskey was working its Irish magic as I walked to the pay phone. I needed to call Inez and make sure she was okay. The storm, the terrorists attacks, my fucking up like a royal jackass, yeah, that warranted a phone call. I’d left the last call to help the young girl. How the hell was I going to explain that? It always seemed like I spent most of my time explaining myself. Jesus Christ. What a mess I’d made of my life. I sipped, place the bottle on top of the phone, and picked up the receiver. I filched a handful of coins from my pocket and dumped them next to the bottle. A few coins toppled on the floor. I let them go.

  I put a few quarters in the slot and dialed home. Next to the phone, a door looked out over the rain-soaked parking lot. The lightning and thunder were a constant dark song and dance. Yellow mist swirled and attacked the diner. I peered out into the dismal storm, the swaying winds, and relentless rain.

  The phone connected and began to ring. Its tone seemed cold and distant. It rang and rang. She’s probably gone. Took Bellia and headed south, across the border.

  Finally, it picked up.

  The sound of my own voice spoke to me through the crackling lines.

  “Goddammit.” I wanted to smash the receiver through the window. Instead, I slammed it back into the cradle and drank. My eyes burned looking out into the storm.

  My stomach rolled, and I knew I had to get back on the road. The hell with the food, I needed to get out of there and back home. I stared out into the darkness, and I could have sworn I saw something out there. Something or someone—moving in the rain. Maybe it wasn’t the rain and wind that was swaying and swerving after all. Maybe it was the booze, or being dog-tired, but I could have sworn I saw a shit-load of people walking out in the storm. Realizing that it was just the day from hell for me, I took a pull from the bottle, chalked it up to me being a drunk, paranoid idiot, and let it go. I was finally going to take a damn day off. I needed to take care of me and mine for a change. The kid could catch a ride here. Maybe Whitney could give her a ride. He was always heading into Mexico on deliveries. Either way, I’d done my good deed. She wasn’t my problem anymore. Filled with a newfound conviction, the whiskey somehow tasted sweeter. I nodded and tried to forget about the moving storm outside.

  “Atten-hut! Officer on deck!”

  A deep, booming voice jolted me. I jumped, knocking both the coins from atop the phone, almost pissing my pants.

  I spun, ready to make someone's day pretty shitty.

  Fucking, Jimbo.

  28

  Keep My Heart in a Rage.

  The Voice raged inside Isandro’s head.

  Kill the pendejo motherfucker. And that bitch that’s with him too! The Voice shouted and repeated its command, as Isandro watched the stocky man in the long leather jacket and Stetson hat sitting only a mere thirty feet away from him.

  It was as if Jesus Christ himself, who Isandro had thought forsaken his sorry ass a long time ago, was sending him a peace offering. He couldn’t believe the blessing that was set before him. At last, God and his Son finally were bowing down to him? It was only fitting, as he was, Isandro Philippe Dianira, god living among mortals. He drank from his bottle, and a wicked, crooked grin broke across his face. Judgment day was upon the world. He licked his lips, felt the grip of his pistol, and the grin sliced into a wide smile as he watched the drunken Ranger stagger to the pay phone.

  A gift from God it was. Manny and Bobby stared at him like he was fucking loco. He was far from crazy. No, he had never been clearer. His mind was swirling with ideas, and his moment of revenge was at hand. He was certain he couldn’t lose, considering God himself had laid the Ranger, who had destroyed his life, at his doorstep. Maybe the wailing storm outside and the attacks they talked about on the radio were true signs from God that it was the end of days, and that he was the sword of God. Sent to cleanse the world of vile creatures like this puta with the hat. It was a good place to start.

  29.

  It’s so Hard.

  Jimbo wrapped his muscular, hairy arms around me, and squeezed. The bear hug forced the air from my lungs. His face was filled with a broad, white smile. His chubby cheeks deep with dimples were the color of roses. The jarhead turned grill-jockey still had the looks of the same eighteen-year-old I met at boot camp. Lucky bastard.

  “Damn good to see ya, man.” Jimbo smiled and hugged me tighter.

  Forcing the words out, “Can’t…brea,” I gasped.

  “Ah hell. Sorry, Jay.” Jimbo released me, and I wheeled back. Thank God, the pay phone broke my fall.

  “It’s okay, brother.” I laughed, catching my breath. “It’s damn good to see ya too, hoss.” I said, slapping the big man on his shoulder. We were like brothers. We’d been through the mosquito-infested swamps and hell-spawned Drill Sergeants of Paris Island and saved each other’s ass in Viet Nam. We were true Devil-Dogs through and through, surviving both the Tet Offensive and the fall of Saigon. We left that hell-hole on the same bird. Like I said, we were brothers. But that still didn’t explain Jimbo’s over emotional hug. Hell, we weren’t in the damn Navy, what’s with the hug? Am I dying and didn’t know it? Jimbo had always been a little sensitive, quite the contrast with his brutish size. Damn, I’d seen the man clear an entire barroom of drunken Army pukes by himself. But damn… It was just weird.

  “What the hell you doing out in this shit? You on duty?” he asked, adjusting the grease-stained, Dallas Cowboy’s baseball cap on his sweaty, round head.

  “Nah. I’m headed home. I had some shit detail up in Lubbock.” I pulled the bottle from the top of the pay phone and offered him a sip.

  He eyed the bottle, and after a long moment, he took it, sipped, and then handed it back. He had a strange look on his face. Like he was constipated or something. He wanted to speak, but it was stuck.

  “How is the new duty going?” he asked. His face continued to squirm.

  “It’s going all right,” I lied. I studied his eyes, and they danced around, looking everywhere but my face. Something was up.

  “Jimbo, what the hell’s going on, man?” I held my arms out wide and forced him to look into my eyes.

  The storm continued its furious assault on the diner. Adding more drama to the annoyingly awkward scene inside. That big-ass Mexican was still shooting me looks, which normally would be enough reason for me to stomp a mud-hole in his ass, but now was not the time. But, if they kept messing with those young college kids, I just might have to say hello.

  “Hell, Jay.” Jimbo hung his head and stepped closer. “Sorry, man. It’s just that Robbie and me, we’ve been talking to Inez, and she’s been worried about you. With you’re drinking, fighting at work. You're a damn time bomb, brother.”

  He glimpsed up at me, looking for my telltale sign of anger. But it must have been off duty, because he continued talking without a shattered jaw.

  “Ya know that I love ya, and I would never stick my nose in your business, but, Robbie said you came in with some young girl. What…I…with what happened before, I jus—”

  I cut him off.

  “You kidding me, man? You’re the one guy I thought understood me.” I stepped back, and my first impulse was to shatter the bottle over his head. But I held that thought off. I took a deep breath. Held it, and let it out slowly.

  “Jim. Now look. I know I’ve screwed things up in the past, and I
am a hell of a way from perfect. But man, I love Inez, you know that. And with baby Bellia here, she means the world to me. I wouldn’t do anything to mess that up, my brother. I swear.” I grabbed his face and pulled it close to mine. I stared him straight in the eyes. He had tears welling up at the corners, and his round cheeks turned redder.

  “I’m sorry, brother. It’s just with all the crazy news on TV, the attacks and fucked up weather, I…”

  “The girl’s a runaway from New York, and some assholes back at Moe’s were planning on doing some bad things, man. I couldn’t let that happen. You remember the psycho back at the village, with that girl?”

  Jim nodded. “My Loc.”

  “Yeah, that's it. Same kind of shit, same kind of assholes. Brother.” I let my eyes bore deep into his. I could feel him relax, and slowly his smile returned.

  “I’m sorry, Jay. I am. I love ya, man, and I… I wor—” His face froze in a tormented expression of regret, anger, and sadness. His deep green eyes bulged.

  That’s when it all went to shit.

  ***

  Jimbo’s Drive-In Parking Lot.

  Hector slowly walked toward the side steps of the diner, wiping the tears from his face, and stopped.

  He heard something behind him. He tilted his head as the rain poured in cold, yellow sheets. The thunder drummed. Lightning danced all around him.

  It was nothing, he told himself. But more than likely, it was overwhelming guilt that made him paranoid. He felt his chest tighten, and despite the cold temperatures, he found himself sweating like he was back in Mexico working the fields.

  There it was again. He froze.

  His pulse drummed in his temples. His heart pounded.

  Was he drunk? Was it just the storm and the news on the radio that had him on the edge of a nervous breakdown? Every muscle in his body tensed, as the low, monotone sound grew louder.

  From behind him. No, wait. All around him.

  Cold sweat mixed with the freezing rain.

  That’s when he saw the figures coming out of the shadow of the storm. The two teen girls they’d killed were lumbering toward him. They were dead. His head swam. White flashes of lightning painted the area, and Hector could see every bloody detail.

  “Dios Madre,” he muttered in a whisper.

  For the love of all that’s holy, they were dead. He'd seen Isandro slit the girl’s damn throat wide open and watched her bleed out. Now, she stood before him with jagged hunks of blood-encrusted flesh hanging loosely from her neck, her skin a ghostly white. Her eyes were black as pits, but somehow seemed to bore into him with a cold and burning darkness that made every part of his body ache.

  “No, thi…this can’t.” He made the sign of the cross and tried to move. His legs failed him. Then, the dead girl’s twin sister stepped out from the darkness and slowly walked toward him. He felt his blood freeze.

  The rain poured down like frozen bullets from heaven. Each drop a painful assault on his exposed skin. He tried to break his stare on the dead twins as they trudged through the mud toward him, but all his body would allow were a few feeble steps backward.

  “Who? Wha...” He tried to speak, but his words abandoned him. All he could do was stare deep into their black, sorrow-filled eyes.

  They inched painfully closer. He couldn’t move.

  Lightning painted the parking lot.

  He was aware of his surroundings, and his breath caught deep in his chest. His body was filled with horror as he looked around the parking lot.

  Thunder rumbled like cannons above him, and he thought his heart would explode out of his quivering chest.

  Before him, all around were over at least two-dozen shambling forms, all with the same awkward gait and letting out low moans.

  As a volley of lightning lit the area, he panicked to see that beyond the diner’s parking lot, sitting on a hill, was a cemetery. The mob of people was coming from there. “In God’s name…” hector croaked. He shook his head, hoping it was the booze and the pot. Yeah, that was it, the weed must have been laced or some shit. Deep down, he knew he was wrong. Dead wrong. This was an act of God. An angry God. A vengeful God. It was the end times, and God was pissed. He began to cry.

  They were dead. All of them. Fucking dead! He mouthed prayers as his tears matched the rain pelting his face.

  He tried to move. He managed to get one foot to respond to his pleas. He spun and tried to run for the stairs, but slipped in the deep mud and fell. The twins were on him, and he stared up at the black night sky. No stars, just a darkness that offered nothing, save sporadic lightning flashes and cold rain. One of the twins obscured his rain-filled view of heaven, appearing above him. Her throat gaped open, exposing bloody skin, slit muscles, and arteries dangling on his face like cold spaghetti slathered in a frigid meat sauce.

  She stared deep into his eyes. Like a dog tilting its head at a squeak toy, she looked at him. After a long terror-filled moment, she leaned down until she was a mere two inches from Hector’s face. It wasn’t the violent wound in her young neck that made him to weep even harder. No, it was her eyes.

  “Forgive me,” he mouthed to the girl and to God. He didn’t flinch when the girl’s teeth tore into his throat, and she fed.

  He shook with white-hot pain. All over his body, many new sets of teeth dug and ripped at him, rending flesh from bone. He cried out into the pouring rain, but he was ready to die. He deserved it and prayed God would forgive him. He knew damn well He wouldn’t. He felt a burning in his stomach and a flurry of action and moans around him.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see. His soul couldn’t bear to see the girl’s face. Her eyes.

  In those eyes, Hector could see there would be no penance. No forgiveness from God.

  Those dark eyes held more sorrow and horror in them.

  Those black eyes cried black tears, and he could have sworn he heard the young dead girl whisper from her cold mouth,

  I’m sorry,

  Then Hector was hurled into darkness, and all he knew was the cold embrace of death.

  30

  Gun Love

  Inside Jimbo’s Diner

  It all happened at once. A thunderclap rocked the diner, a flurry of gunshots came from somewhere in front of me, A tirade of Spanish cussing, the sound of breaking glass, and then,a sharp pain burst through my left arm.

  The first bullet shattered the whiskey bottle in my hand and stuck in the wall. The second one split the door’s window behind me into a thousand shards. It was the third one that hurt like a sonuvabitch.

  The bullet sent me sprawling backward. My head smashed into the pay phone, knocking the receiver off the cradle, and I collapsed in heap against the wall. Glass rained down on me. A stinging, burning filled my backside. I felt warm blood on the back of my pants and legs. The shards of the whiskey bottle jammed deep into my ass and thigh.

  I looked up at Jimbo, his face still held the same look of shock. My breath caught in my chest as I saw a red dot on his grease-stained t-shirt bloom into a red explosion. Pieces of bone, flesh, and blood painted me and the wall behind. The phone above me rang as the bullet lodged itself in the bell of its metal casing.

  The torrent of Spanish cussing filled my ears as Jimbo’s frozen gaze fell upon me. Blood seeped from the wound in his broad chest. My mind was a storm of images, sounds, and terrors. What the hell was going on? Too much damn booze. I cursed my demons and myself.

  “Jay…” Jimbo cried. And as if to answer him, a shot rang out. Jimbo’s head jerked forward, bloody spit flew from his gaping mouth. A splattering of brain and bone shrapnel covered me. My pulse raced, my arm filled with red-hot pain, and my blood mixed with Jimbo's on the floor beneath me.

  “Jimbo….” My breath gushed from my lungs when the full weight of the big man collapsed on top of me. I could feel the glass bore deeper into my leg. My arm screamed in pain, and I heard myself cry out. It was echoed with laughter. I knew that laugh.

  Fuck me runnin’. I
gritted my teeth, trying to bury the pain. My head was a cluster-fuck of shock, confusion, and rage. It raced with frenzied thoughts of Inez and Bellia, the shit-bag Governor, and my dead best friend, sprawled across my bleeding lap. There was no way in hell it could be that murderous asshole. He was sent to Oklahoma for twenty-five to fucking life.

  “Hola, Ranger. Remember me?”

  That voice. I didn’t know the elevator to Hell went this goddamn low.

  I swallowed hard and tasted copper. My gut rolled at the thought that it wasn’t mine.

  It was that shit-bag gang-banger Dianira. With my one good arm I hugged Jimbo, and I knew he was dead. A deep burning inside me began to grow. It wasn’t the pain or the blood.

  I kissed my friend on the side of his mangled head and whispered.

  “Semper Fi, brother.” I squeezed him with my good arm, and then wiped the gore from my eyes. I shifted the big man off just enough to allow me to reach my .45 on my right hip. I found it, popped loose the clasp on the holster and gripped the pistol.

  Then my wrist erupted with bone-shaking pain.

  I heard the scream of a young girl and some pretty damn foul words in Spanish.

  Stacy Jo.

  I smiled, and with my aching hand, snatched the pistol from the holster.

  31

  Need Me

  Stacy Jo heard the gunshots and instinctively slammed her back against the wall of the small bathroom. Screams of panic and shouts came through the flimsy door. The shouts were in Spanish, and whoever was speaking was pissed off.

  Then she heard cold-hearted laughter. She could feel the burning hate through the hollow door. The scarred face of the creepy-ass Mexican that winked at her back in the booth flashed across her mind. She nodded.