“Drink,” he urged. I watched him sip delicately from his cup. Pretty sure he wasn’t poisoning me, I shot mine like it was Mescal and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
He shook his head and refilled my cup. “Sake’ should be sipped and relished not guzzled like cheap whiskey.”
I shot mine again, just to spite him and felt the warm glow of the rice liquor spread through my body.
He chuckled to himself and didn’t bother to refill my cup. Stingy bastard. The stuff was pretty good and with the way this day was going, I could use another drink or four.
“In the future, if you wish to retrieve in my territory, you will come see me first and we will negotiate terms.” He looked at me and I swear I could see the crazy just dancing behind his heavy lizard-lidded eyes.
“You bet. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I’ll see myself out.” I had no intention of following his orders; of course, I just wanted to get away from this psycho. I went to stand up, glad to be on my way, knowing deep down it wasn’t gonna be that easy. It never was.
He placed his hand on the katana. “Sit down!” He snapped.
I eased my hand towards the Benchmade still clipped behind my back. I was itching to gut this bastard and take my chances with his boys outside.
“If I draw my sword, it will taste blood before it is resheathed.” He said softly. “And should you best me; my men will cut you down.”
I sat. Patience, Rye. Miss Campbell, my go to source for weapons and gear back in Lakota always told me my hot head and poor judgment was gonna get me killed one day. I hoped she was wrong.
He continued. “As I was saying, in the future, you will see me before working in my territory.”
“Got it,” I said. Irritation seeped into my voice.
“In the present, we must deal with the affront to my honor.” He slid the tanto from his sash and laid it on the table before him.
He snapped his finger and the door slid open again. The geisha entered and set a scene straight out of your nightmares on the end of the table.
A zombie head sat wedged atop what looked like a big pickle jar filled with murky fluid. I couldn’t make out was bobbing in the liquid. The putrid head stunk something awful. Sagging flesh hung in folds on the cheeks. The remaining eyeball was black and lifeless, the other a nasty empty socket. It gnashed its rotting, broken teeth at me.
“I will accept the first joint of your pinky finger. I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll let you choose which hand.” He slid the tanto towards me.
I reached for it, ready to make my move, when the door slid open behind me and Shotgun Guy jabbed that Remington into the back of my skull. Damn, I was really starting to dislike these guys.
“If I refuse?” I asked him.
He gripped the hilt of his katana. “Then your skull will join the others who dared to insult me. Since you are of some reputation and were kind enough to deliver the merchandise to my front door, I offer you the honorable alternative. Take it, not many get the option.”
I gulped and tried to buy myself some time to think. Time to act and get myself out of this jam. I blurted out the first thing that popped in my head.
“Are you having some kind of identity crisis here? Geographically confused? Bat shit crazy? I mean, obviously you’re Hispanic, but you have this whole Japanese vibe going on. I mean, I’m not judging you or anything, but this shit is just weird.”
He didn’t like my lame attempt at a joke. He nodded at Shotgun Guy. Shotgun guy swatted me across the side of the head with the barrel of the shotgun. Blood filled my mouth and I felt at least a couple of teeth loosen in their sockets.
Tough crowd. I rubbed my jaw. Damn that hurt.
“Do you have another joke Mr. Rye?” He smirked over his steepled fingers, instantly reminding me of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
“I always have jokes,” I said through my swollen mouth. “Have you ever considered changing your name to Burrito Bushido? Maybe take your act on the road? I’m sure you’d be a big hit on the drag queen scene with that lovely silk dress and all.” I asked. Stupidly. Sometimes I just don’t know when to shut up.
This time I got the shotgun cracked over the top of my head. Ouch, that was good for at least a mild concussion, but at least I heard Shotgun Guy choke back a laugh. If I could stand the pain, I’d have these guys rolling in the floor laughing before long.
I wobbled for a few seconds, then shook it off as best I could and ignored the blood running down my cheek from my cracked noggin.
Pascal leaned forward. “You are amusing, I’ll grant you that but this is no joking matter. Do it, or I take your head.”
I picked up the tanto and laid my left hand on the table. Pascal snapped his fingers and a geisha appeared with a small brazier filled with glowing embers. A flat piece of steel glowed red in the bed of coals.
I lined up the blade with the first joint of my left pinky finger. Manic glee glistened in his eyes as his façade dropped and his crazy shined through.
“Just give me the tip senor.” He said in heavily accented English. Everyone laughed at his joke. Hell, if it wasn’t my finger about to get amputated, I’d have laughed too. Dick jokes are funny, I don’t care who you are.
I closed my eyes, held my breath and pushed the blade down hard. It was razor sharp and I barely felt it as the tip of my finger was severed. I dropped the tanto and grabbed my wounded paw to staunch the bleeding. Buzzard and Vulture stepped forward and grabbed me, while Shotgun Guy jabbed that shotgun against my spine. They held my arm out while the geisha with the brazier cauterized the stump with the piece of cherry red metal. The feeling in my finger came back in a hurry, and I’m not ashamed to say, I howled like a run over dog as my damaged nerve endings fired on all cylinders. I almost blacked out from the pain. Only stubbornness and pride kept me from crying like a baby. That shit hurt. A lot.
They let me go and I reached for the sake’. I turned the jug up and drained the whole thing. My stomach burned with a fire that matched the burning in my hand as the potent liquor hit my system.
Pascal picked up the fingertip and tossed it into the air. For a second there, I thought he was gonna catch it in his mouth like a grape. He let it fall into his open palm, then flicked it into the open mouth of the snarling zombie head. It chewed on my dismembered digit for a few seconds, and then I heard a plop as it went down its throat into the jar below. Well, that answered my question about what was floating in the jar.
“Now, you will turn over the merchandise to me and I will ensure the good Colonel gets it and you Mr. Rye, can be on your way.” Pascal said, once again playing the warrior monk role.
Hans and Franz dragged me to my feet towards the front door. Pascal rose smoothly, patted his pickle jar zombie on the head and slid the katana into his sash.
He gestured. “After you, Mr. Rye.”
I shuffled in my sock feet towards the door. Hans and Franz flanked me, tightly gripping my arms. The Raptor boys flanked us with their submachine guns ready. Shotgun Guy kept the Remington against my spine. I was almost flattered they thought I was that dangerous. The geisha all bowed as we passed and one of them darted forward to open the outside door. I winked at her and was rewarded with a blush in her cheeks before she quickly lowered her eyes again.
We entered the yard. I looked longingly at the ‘Dillo, wishing I could get my hands on just one of my guns.
“Retrieve my merchandise.” Pascal motioned to Happy.
“I’m sure you have your vehicle booby trapped, where is the deactivation device?” Pascal asked me.
There was a row of rocker switches between the sun visors. The one in the middle was labeled SELF DESTRUCT in big red letters. The Up position was labeled Armed and the Down position Disarmed. Of course, I wasn’t that dumb in case you’re wondering. No one would put it in plain sight like that. However, a lot of the types of people I was concerned with stealing my stuff were that dumb, but I wasn’t sharing that little nugget of information with this f
inger collecting asshole.
“Overhead rocker switch, can’t miss it.” I tried not to smirk.
Happy opened the door and was rewarded with a face full of fur covered razor blades. He screamed in terror as Bo tore into him, darting in quick to take snack sized bites out of his flesh while he shrieked and flailed under Bo’s assault. The others raised their guns towards the fracas, but didn’t fire for fear of hitting Happy.
Bo continued to savage him until I yelled. “Bo, hide!”
Bo broke off his attack and dashed into the brush in an overgrown neighboring yard. They fired at my furry friend, but never touched a hair on him. I wasn’t too worried about him. Bo could take care of himself and was no stranger to being shot at. Neither of us was. We seemed to have a knack for getting shot at.
Happy stood unsteadily to his feet. Blood poured from the numerous bite marks and he was missing most of an ear. Made me feel a little better about my finger. Not much, but a little.
With Bo safely out of the way, I activated the switch in my belt buckle. The real self-destruct switch. The one hooked to two pounds of C4 plastic explosive located under the gun vault, right above the oversized fuel tank. The gun vault that had a few thousand rounds of ammo and a dozen grenades, some of them white phosphorous inside of it. Plus, the six jerry cans of fuel in the rack above the rear bumper. It would be one hell of an explosion. Let one of them push the clutch in and turn the key and it was the Fourth of July.
Happy peered cautiously inside the door of the Armadillo, just in case I had a honey badger or something equally as viscous just waiting to finish what Bo started. Satisfied, he climbed up in the seat.
His eyes were naturally drawn to the switch that glowed red, indicating the self-destruct was armed. Here’s a secret. It always glows red and always says Armed. It has nothing to do with the transmitter in my belt buckle for the C4. That particular rocker switch is connected to a device called the Mousetrap. It was designed by a half crazy, sneaky bastard who goes by the handle of Wirebender back in Lakota. Tommy and the boys in the Lakota truck shop installed it for me when they armored up the Jeep.
I watched Happy flip the switch to Disarm. I heard the twin soft pops and he fell out of the Jeep in agony, clutching his groin and screaming for his mama.
The Mousetrap was simply a twenty-two-caliber derringer mounted in a steel box. An electronic actuator squeezed the trigger when activated and fired both barrels straight up through the seat. Right into the nether regions of would be thieves. Don’t judge me. I’ve already told you I can be a dick sometimes and I don’t tolerate people who try to steal stuff from me that I’ve already stolen. Ever.
Everyone, including me, cringed as Happy mourned his shot off manhood. He was on his knees cursing and wailing. His hands covered his bloody crotch. Pascal screamed in frustration and strode toward the fallen man. The katana slid smoothly from its scabbard. A flash of steel in the midday sun and Happy and his head were separated from each other. Happy’s head spun like a top when it hit the ground, a look of pure surprise frozen on his face when it stopped its spin and stared lifelessly at the sky.
Pascal spun and headed in my direction. I saw the blood dripping from the yard-long razor sharp blade and the crazed look in his eyes. Uh-oh.
“Enough games!” He yelled, spittle hitting me in the face.
Sneaky bastard that I sometimes am, I now held the Benchmade folding knife in my right hand in a reverse grip. Happy’s unfortunate accident gave me the distraction I was looking for to slip it from my belt and flick open the three and half inch blade.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of black and white fur moving near the corner of the villa. Bo was probably pissed they’d shot at him and he wasn’t the best tempered dog on a good day.
Pascal glared at me, I glared right back. I hovered my left index finger over the switch in my belt buckle. Holding it down for five seconds manually overrode the control module for the explosives. This place would be a smoking crater. I’d do it before I let this asshole steal from me and take my head.
“I will have what’s mine.” He said, seething with rage. “I’ll round up every child in this village and send them one at a time into that ugly beast of a machine until all of your booby traps are spent.”
“I’ll send us all to hell first amigo.” I really didn’t like this guy and considered blowing us up just to get him to shut the hell up. I pressed my finger to the button in my belt buckle, unsure if I even had five seconds before he lopped my head off with that oversized pig sticker.
His men took a step back. I guess they’d seen this show before and didn’t want to be in the way of that razor-sharp katana when it started swinging.
“Then we’ll kill each other.” He pronounced kill like keel. He raised his sword and I pushed the button, counting off the seconds in my head.
I was only at two Mississippi when he swung. Everyone was watching to see my head fly through the air, so nobody was paying attention when Bo raced from his hiding spot and hit him in the middle of the back at full throttle. Pascal crashed into me halfway through his swing. I let go of the override button. I grabbed him and tossed his bony ass right into Hans and Frans. The katana went flying and the three bandits went down in a pile of thrashing limbs. My partner was a blur of motion and I heard Shotgun Guy screaming. Bo had used the kimono clad gangster as a springboard to deliver a mouth full of sharp canines right into the face of Shotgun Guy.
Bumper Humper spit out his cigar and reached for the pistol stuck in his waistband, but I was on him with the Benchmade and jabbed him three or forty times before letting his body hit the ground. Then I ran like hell.
“Let’s go Bo!” I shouted. Bo abandoned the savaged Shotgun Guy, who I instantly renamed Ground Chuck. He was a chewed-up mess and wasn’t moving anymore.
Hans and Frans untangled themselves from Pascal and fired at me as I was running away. I threw myself over the bed of the closest Raptor and watched the bullets punch a line of holes through the thin metal of the truck bed in a horizontal pattern. I scurried behind the metal shroud of the bed mounted machine gun, pulled myself up by the firing handles and opened fire.
I swept the barrel across Pascal’s remaining men, finger locked down on the trigger focusing on the Raptor boys first then moving onto the rest of them. Hot, empty brass piled up at my feet. His goons never had a chance and went down in a shredded pile of bones and guts. I swung the machine gun towards the fleeing Pascal. The skinny prick ran through the door of the villa and slammed it shut as I poured armor piercing rounds into everything but him. Some assholes are just born lucky.
I had no idea how many reinforcements he had inside, but I felt like I was owed a little revenge so I strafed both floors of the villa with machine gun fire in a sweeping pattern at head height, hoping that the geishas had the sense to hit the deck. His crew already ran me down once and not wanting them to catch me again, I turned the gun on their vehicles. I shredded the other Raptor, then the Cadillac. Almost felt bad about the Camaro, it was a sweet ride, but I finished off the ammo belt on it anyway.
The machine gun barrel glowed red from the sustained fire as I let the handles go. I could feel the clock ticking against me as I vaulted over the side of the truck and jumped up in the Jeep behind Bo. I deactivated the self-destruct sequence and fired up the engine. I spun the Jeep around, slowed just long enough to chunk a white phosphorous grenade through the window of the last Raptor and punched the gas.
I saw Pascal run out on the second-floor balcony with a long rifle clutched in his hands as he grew smaller in my rearview mirror. I heard the boom and felt the impact of the heavy round hit the tailgate. Another boom, miss, then another boom, hit. My spare tire exploded. Good thing, that wasn’t a gas can. I buried the pedal to the floorboard. I tore down the now deserted dusty streets, swerved to miss a dog lying in the middle of the road licking himself and redlined the engine before shifting gears, trying to eke out every ounce of power the Jeep had. I hit the fl
imsy gate at sixty miles an hours just as the second Raptor went up in a spectacular fireball when the fuse on the willy pete grenade burned up. All I could see was smoke and dust in the rearview. Good. If I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me either.
I scratched my partner behind his ears and fished us out both a piece of beef jerky. He’d saved my ass, again. We raced north as fast as we could, eager to get the hell out of Pascal’s territory. My missing digit throbbed something fierce, and my head hurt from the blows I’d taken. My jaw was swollen and I could feel those loosened teeth moving in their sockets. But we’d made the retrieve and it was gonna be a good payday.
I wasn’t through with Pascal, not by a longshot. I’d be back for his bony ass when the odds were a little more in my favor and before I was done with him, he’d have a body part or two floating in that pickle jar to keep my finger company.
The road behind me was clear as far as I could see. The rapidly cooling desert air felt good blowing through the titanium mesh that covered the top of the Armadillo and the setting sun painted the desert in a myriad of hues of brilliant color. I never tired of a desert sunset. Despite losing my favorite pair of boots and part of my finger, I was still alive and had a story that would earn me a few free drinks down at the cantina in Carrizozo. After I collected my payment and punched the Colonel in his mouth, of course.
Some people were happy to be inside the fortified towns, rebuilding this world into something better, but not me. Don’t get me wrong, they are the future. Someday, people like me will be folk tales and footnotes in the history books. Me, though, I was happiest on a retrieval, risking it all for adventure, glory and a pocket full of money.
I’ll be taking a few days off to heal up and break in a new pair of boots. Use some of my payday to settle up my tab at the cantina and see if I can’t coerce one of the local girls into some debauchery. I’m one of the best at what I do, so if there’s something you just can’t live without and don’t want to risk your own neck to go get it yourself, stop into the general store in Carrizozo, New Mexico and tell them you’re looking for Rye. I’ll be in touch.
The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 77