by Mike Leon
“What do you want me to do? Tell all the SWAT guys in California to meet me at that address for a fun surprise? Maybe coordinate with a Facebook event? You can’t rush these things, Chad. That’s how people get killed.”
Dmitry hears the creaking of a door back at the house and sees someone hurriedly walking along the breezeway toward him. It is one of the weirdos employed by the mysterious gentleman known only as Red. This one is a scraggly bearded and stumpy man with a pot belly bulging from the front of a food stained “I’m with Stupid” t-shirt.
“I’m gonna have to go now. Just do what you can, Max,” Dmitry says. He shifts his tone as the nameless dumpy stranger closes in on him. “I can’t talk anymore, sweetie. I need to get back to the meeting. I’ll see you tonight.”
“You are needed in the cellar,” says the ragamuffin as Dmitry puts his phone back in his pocket.
INT. LGC MANAGEMENT PROPERTIES - DAY
“I want my daughter back!” Volchenko shouts into Sid’s face. He is micrometers away from Sid being able to snap his nose off in a bite, but has not quite crossed the threshold. “Now where is she?!”
“I left her at the bottom of a cistern with a limited air supply,” Sid says. “But don’t worry. I made sure she was very comfortable.” He winks with great exaggeration at Igor and the syndicate boss’s face turns so red with rage that it looks like it might burst.
He punches Sid in the chin and immediately recoils to cradle his fist. “Pizdet! Is like punching bricks!” He hits like a child.
The freak frowns. “He’s just tough. That’s all.”
“Tough does not turn you to steel.” Volchenko flexes his fingers and rubs the bleeding split flesh of his knuckles.
“Steel. No,” the freak coolly shakes his head. “But there are ways to become harder. Hitting hard wood increases the bone density of the striking limbs. The great Tae Kwon Do fighters break cinder blocks on their shins for this reason. Being hit many times can have this effect on any part of the body… Of course, only a tiny few such madmen exist in the world.” The freak hits Sid in the same spot Volchenko did, but it feels like a small car running into his jaw. A second punch brings about a sickening crunch and a fiery pain as if someone hammered nails into Sid’s face. His jaw is undoubtedly broken.
The freak flicks his punching hand in the air and a mist of blood rattles from his mangled fingers. His knuckles look like he put them in a blender.
“Oy-oy-oy!” Yuri says with a disgusted look. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
The freak is emotionless. “Pain is mostly fear. Fear of permanent damage, loss of life, loss of limb,” he says. He casually snaps a dislocated finger back into place. “We do not fear these things.”
Volchenko whistles in astonishment at the freak’s display of fortitude. “When this over, you and I need to talk about employment possibilities,” he says. “I have many openings.”
Sid cackles through bubbling blood. He says something snide, but all that actually comes out is a pour of red slime through his teeth, causing Volchenko to wince emphatically.
“We do need him to be able to talk,” Volchenko says. “Try to work on something else, maybe? Fingernails? Maybe blowtorch? Yes?” Then Sid hears the heavy tramping of hard leather dress shoes on the wooden cellar steps and Volchenko turns to their new visitor. “Fedosov! There you are! You need work on being punctual.”
Sid glares at the newcomer in his black suit with wire-thin stripes and half unbuttoned red dress shirt. He has two days of dust brown stubble and a shimmer of sweat along his mildly receding hairline.
“Hey!” Sid spits blood down his chin. “I know you! You’re the guy from the gun store that was taping that recording device to yourself!”
For a second, everyone continues on as they were. Volchenko even starts to say something. Then, as if some invisible Gorgon turned them all to stone, everyone in the basement freezes. All sounds, even the chirping of a particularly obnoxious cricket, are suddenly muted. Volchenko narrows his eyes at Sid. “Recording device?” he says. “What recording device?”
“A PX11 SoundWave one-way transmitter,” Sid spits out with a gob of bloody slime. “He bought three of them.”
“He’s lying!” Dmitry shouts. “He’s trying to play us against each other!”
Volchenko seems incredulous. “Is he?”
“Come on, Igor. This is ridiculous. I’ve been in the organization for years.”
“Then certainly you do not mind if we check you for wire.”
“Really? After all this? Frankly, I’m insulted, and I think I’ll just be leaving—”
“Engine,” Velour says. The ratty little sleazeball snaps his fingers and points at Fedosov. The hulking man-slave in the leather mask responds, grabbing Fedosov by his arms and pulling him into a full Nelson with the strength of a boa-constrictor. Yuri Moldovich slings the Pecheneg over his shoulder and tears Fedosov’s red button-up shirt open to expose a length of thin wire taped to his white cotton undershirt.
“Oh shit,” Moldovich says. “Mandavoshka!” Moldovich winds up an angry punch and bashes his knuckles into Fedosov’s nose with the kind of force one can only summon against a stationary target. Fedosov sprays blood from his face like a balloon full of the stuff popped against his teeth.
“Told ya,” Sid says.
“Jesus,” Velour slaps his palm into his forehead and his face crunches into a wad of concern. “Oh, Jesus. We’re fucked. You let him bring a wire in here? In here?!”
“Nobody let him bring wire anywhere,” Yuri says in a begrudging tone.
“This isn’t what it looks like!” Dmitry spits through red slop streaming from his nostrils. Moldovich punches him in the guts in response and he coughs more blood.
“Then what is it?” Velour snaps back. “Are you doing your own radio show? DJ Dmitry coming at ya with another commercial free block of non-stop incriminating voice recordings? Fuck you, you fucking rat!”
“You’re a fucking coprophage, Velour! A fucking dung beetle. Fuck you!”
“No, fuck you!” Velour slaps Fedosov like a sissy.
“Yeah!” Moldovich says. “Fuck you!” He punches Dmitry in the broken nose again and the double agent cries out.
“Fuck you too!” Velour says to Yuri.
“Fuck me? Why fuck me?”
“I don’t know! Just fuck everybody!”
“All of you,” Volchenko growls. “SHUT! UP!” The others all quiet themselves on Volchenko’s command, except Engine. He never talks anyway. Volchenko steps between Yuri and Fedosov with a stern glare. “Who are you talking to?”
“The FBI—” Dmitry says, interrupted by Volchenko slapping him in the mouth.
“What do they have?” Volchenko shouts.
“Everything. It’s all over, Igor. They know about it all. The whores, the drugs, this place—”
“Fuck me!” Velour exclaims. “I won’t make it in San Quentin. I can’t do this, man!”
“He is lying.”
“No I’m not. They’re freezing your assets right now.”
“Then why are you still here? Eh?” Volchenko chuckles. “You are still here wearing wire. But you have everything you need already? Lies.”
Sid cackles. “They’re gonna pull your tongue out, Fedosov. And I’m gonna watch.” The freak’s fist feels like a wrecking ball slamming into his chest. Some fingers crack. So do some ribs. Sid only laughs harder and spits more blood onto the freak’s face. The freak doesn’t flinch. “Now will you trade Fedosov for Katya?” Sid hacks. “If we leave about five minutes ago we might get there in time to resuscitate her with minimal brain damage. Everybody wins.”
Volchenko does not look amused. “I do not have time for lies of rat,” he says. “Engine, take Mr. Fedosov behind house and shoot him.”
“Oh shit,” Dmitry says. “You don’t want to do this. I’m an FBI agent, Igor!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Velour interrupts. “Is that true?”
Volchenko shrugs coldly. “I
don’t care if it is.”
“You’ll all get the needle if you kill me!” Dmitry says. “Your only chance now is to turn state’s witness against Volchenko!”
“Is that true?” Velour says.
“No!” Volchenko shouts.
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Velour points at Yuri. “Is that true, Yuri?”
Moldovich shrugs without a clue. “Maybe.”
“He lies! He is distraction! We need to save babochka! Kill him, Engine.”
“Yeah! Kill Fedosov right here!” Sid says. The freak hammers a mangled hand into Sid’s broken jaw. Sid only glares back at the freak, snickering and drooling blood down onto his shirt.
“Don’t do it, Engine!” Velour says.
Volchenko charges Fedosov himself, swinging his fists into the younger man’s face with a ferocity only a very patient man can build up. He doesn’t seem to care about his fists anymore. Fedosov’s eyes flutter and he gasps as Volchenko hammers blow after blow into his skull while Moldovich struggles to wrap his arms around the boss and Velour jimmies his way between the two men.
“Could it be?” the freak says as the others struggle. His beady little eyes come closer to Sid’s nose than self-preservation should allow. His breath is like rubbing alcohol and his scarf smells like a bonfire. “We have seen that awful void before. Now we understand…”
Sid lunges, chomping at the freak’s nose with his salty red teeth, but the freak is too quick. He bobs away in a flash, without a hint of anything but cold martial perfection.
“Fine!” Volchenko screams. “You will not kill him? You want to turn me in?! That is what you want?! I do not need you!” He turns to the freak instead. “Red! Kill them! Kill all of them!”
The bald little man offers him the most cursory of looks, waving him off like a spoiled celebutante dismissing a butler. “Leave now.”
“Huh?” Volchenko says, his train of rage diffused and derailed in an instant.
“Yeah. Huh?” Sid parrots.
“We do not care about your problems.” He flicks his hand toward the door. “You will now do as we say, or useful idiots will tear you all asunder.” This is an interesting development.
“I don’t pay you to tell me what to do,” Volchenko snarls.
“The people are weary of being oppressed, persecuted, exploited to the maximum. They are weary of the wretched selling of their labor-power day after day so that the greatest profit can be wrung from each human body, profit later squandered in the orgies of the masters of capital.”
“You keep old Lenin shit to yourself and—” Hands clamp around Volchenko from a dozen different directions. The freak’s followers pull at his arms and legs, lifting him up off his feet. “Wha? What is this? GET OFF ME!”
Engine drops Fedosov and the man flops against the concrete like a flour sack. He might be dead from the way Volchenko beat him. The big leather daddy grabs Moldovich’s machine gun, to the old soldier’s wide-eyed surprise. Velour rushes up the basement steps without a second of hesitation and the freaks just let him go. Not one of them even turns their head.
“Violence is not the monopoly of the exploiters and as such the exploited can use it too and, moreover, ought to use it when the moment arrives,” the freak says. Volchenko screeches like mad as scores of those entranced strangers haul him in different directions, tugging at him with all their collective might. One arm pops from its socket. A woman shrieks from a dog cage nearby. Yuri manages to pull the machine gun away from Engine and blast the big leather daddy in the guts with it before a tidal wave of bodies crashes down on top of him.
“Haaaaaaaa! AAAAAaaghh!” Volchenko screams like a man on fire. A forearm comes loose, dragging shreds of flesh behind it. Blood jets from the elbow stump as the horde grabs hold of his bicep to continue pulling. He stops screaming after the other arm comes off, but that doesn’t stop them from tugging away his head and legs along with it.
Then, just like that, the syndicate is gone, leaving Sid in the dank dungeon with the freak and his idiots—his useful idiots. It’s a better word for them than zombies.
“You…” says the freak. “Your eyes are like a black abyss, filled with nothing but doom. We have seen this. We know this. You are not Kill Team One. You are his wicked progeny.”
“Who are you?”
“We have many names. We are the Zeitgeist, Estrella Roja, the Prizrak Kommunizma, Xǔduō Bāngpài and other names as well, but we like the name your people use for us: Red Scare.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“Of course not. You spit blood in the face of certain death. But we do not seek to scare you. We seek to use you. You will be our bait. We will lure our old nemesis here, to this place where we are strong, and then you will both di—”
Something crashes through the wall behind the Scare, sending bricks and broken cement spreading through the room in a tempestuous cacophony of destruction. Diesel smoke chokes the air and the loud grumble of a hulking engine floods the room. It doesn’t scream loud enough to be a tank, but it is a huge vehicle—a bright orange Kubota bulldozer with its enormous steel dozer blade pushing fallen concrete deeper into the basement. The blade comes to a sudden stop only inches from the shrieking face of a caged woman.
The tall orange tractor door swings open and a strange and vivacious vision steps down from the inside to the rubble below.
Every lengthy strand of her fine straight hair is the perfect shade of bubblegum pink. It shimmers like glass reflecting the outside light from the gaping hole in the wall into stunningly prismatic colors along the crown of her head. Each beautiful fiber is pulled back and bundled with the others into a crisp ponytail by a single gold band and stretches down the arch of her delicate hourglass frame to her firm round flank. A few vibrant locks dangle over her face, further enhancing her unearthly beauty.
Her fluttering doe eyes are like emeralds that sparkle and shine upon the great tawny sands of some bright tropical paradise. Tiny fragments of purple and blue twinkle within them like the rainbow scales of schooling fish. With each blink, her great black lashes paddle the air like the gentle palm frond fans of servants cooling a beloved princess.
Her skin is smooth as silk and burnished like bronze. Tender with youth, every square inch is the same perfectly perfect tanned shade. Not a fiber stands anywhere on the visible surface, as though it were sculpted by artisan hands and molded from evenly colored plastic. The only variance appears in her ruby red lips, which are pouty and glisten in the shape of a delightfully double curved cupid’s bow.
Her shoulders are bare and narrow. The way the sunlight plays upon them is suggestive of Aphrodite herself descending from the heavens above and discarding her coverings for the Judgment of Paris. Her chest is covered by a loose knit white tank top which strains to contain her billowing voluminous breasts. Those splendid and nubile mounds stand with divine symmetry alone, unsupported by such a trivial redundancy as a brassiere. Their delicate tips point the way ahead through the thin fabric of her top.
Below those godly orbs, her abdomen is an absurdly flawless washboard which could not be equaled by any women’s fitness magazine cover, before or after airbrushing. The curve of her hips is extreme but graceful, like the arching hand-carved wooden grip of a Colt Single Action Army, and just as inviting to the hand. Her abdomen vanishes into a miniscule pair of blue denim shorts which cling to her bulging pear-shaped butt like a layer of spray enamel. It is a luscious exemplar of what every underwear model strives for and yet finds still slightly out of reach.
Velvety thighs, toned to perfection, flow from the bottom of her shorts like a clear and gentle waterfall into meaty young knees that would make a baby jealous. Her calves are spectacular. Michelangelo could not have crafted them, for his human comprehension, however great, was not infallible.
Her feet, exposed by open toed sandals, are dainty little things, soft and delicate like those of a Chinese princess. Her toes are exceptional. Painted with bright pink polish, they glimmer l
ike the inner lips of a conch’s shimmering shell. Her big toes are wider than the others, but not unusually long, and show no sign of wear or hardness, only healthy and perfect cuticles surrounded by sun-bleached skin. Her long toe, which is just a tad shorter than the hallux, is the ideal image of a toe that one might view in a textbook or sandal catalogue. Her middle toe is a heavenly construct, worthy of prolonged study as though it were the entirety of Pi. The ring toe, playfully disregarding its namesake in an act of endearingly futile rebellion, has no ring upon it at all. You silly ring toe, we love you more for your cluelessness. The pinky toe is a delight reminiscent of the sonnets of Shakespeare:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
She holds an unfamiliar object in her left hand—a matte black metal box the size of the one Sid’s boots came in. It has six short rods protruding from the top end and several sets of dials and switches along the side.
Sid shakes his head. “You must have hit me harder than I thought you did,” he grumbles.
“No. We see it too,” the Scare says, looking over his shoulder in abject astonishment.
“Who the fuck are you?” Sid shouts from the framing device.
“Mary Sue Jadefire Sakura Ravencaller,” the devastatingly beautiful girl says. “I’m here to rescue you.” She sets her black box down on the hood of the tractor with a heavy clunk, and then the idiots go wild.