Joe heard her coming as he sat in the back office, doing paperwork. "What's wrong with Drew?" he asked his niece.
"Dunno," she lied, clocking out.
"He dared me to fire him today."
That got Jenny's attention. "What?" she walked back into Joe's office. "No way!" Drew was her favorite person to work with. He always made her laugh, whether he meant to or not, which was the best thing about him.
Joe looked up from his papers. "He refused to do what I told him to do, and when I confronted him on his insubordination, he told me to fire his ass."
"But you didn't, right?"
"Hell no, he's the only male employee I've got that is worth a damn, but he is definitely on my shit list now."
Nodding her head, she walked out of his office, grabbing her keys off the break table.
"Why don't you give that boy a chance?"
Jenny looked back at her uncle with a shrug. "We're friends."
Joe leaned back in his chair, looking at his niece. "He's a good kid, unlike those hoods he hangs out with. You would be doing yourself a favor as well as him if the two of you got together. He would treat you like a queen."
She looked away from him with a light sigh, knowing what he said was completely true, but in all honesty she just wasn't willing to settle for a nice guy.
He seemed to read her mind. "Nice guys finish last, right? How many bad boys do you think are worth having around when it's time to start a family or buy a house? I'd bet fifty bucks that five years from now, Johnny will be bald, have a gut twice as big as Drew's, and be unemployed. How do you think Drew will be doing?"
She nodded her head, scrambling for the back door, knowing full well that Drew was a straight A student, even though he worked thirty plus hours a week. Pushing it open, she had just enough time to see the tail end of Drew's car as it pulled past the diner and onto the highway.
She let out a ragged sigh of relief as his car disappeared from sight. "What the hell would you have said to him, anyway?" She asked herself. Thoughts swirled in her mind about the good things about Drew and the bad things about Johnny. Walking towards her car, she let out a low growl at the simple truth of the bad of Johnny just tasted sweeter than the good of Drew, which was just stupid.
The drawl of the bad boy can be hard to escape for some girls, but Jenny was doing her best to leave behind the addiction.
Drew went home, took a shower and tried to relax and watch a little T.V. but all he could think about was Jenny having the hot's for Johnny.
"Bullshit," he said aloud. "If she is that stupid, she's not worth the trouble." Pulling out his cell phone, he texted his best friend.
Jake's phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling it out he saw the text message: Bored. Let's get together and get stoned/drunk.
Letting out a quiet sigh, he rubbed his eyes. All he really wanted to do was go back to sleep as soon as they got out of this hell hole.
Still at mom's treatment. Jake texted back. Gotta go home and crash for a couple of hours. Let you know when I'm up and we'll hook up then.
Pussy was Drew's one word reply.
Jake let out a sigh of annoyance, just as his phone rang. He answered it, not even looking at the number, guessing it was Drew.
"Yeah?"
"You're an asshole," it was Johnny's voice.
"If I am, I can't even imagine what that makes you."
A slightly nervous cackle assaulted Jake's eardrum for a second before Johnny found his voice. "I'm ready to party. Come and pick me up at my house."
"Man, don't you guys ever sleep?"
"I'll get enough sleep when I'm dead, now come and get me!"
"I'm still at the doctor's with mom, so meet me at the park."
"I've walked enough for one lifetime, shit-head. I'm not walking another mile to the damn park just to meet your sorry ass."
"Fine, then stay home and do nothing, that would make my life easier."
"C'mon man, just come and get me!"
"Nope," Jake replied, mainly to be a pain in Johnny's ass. "You either meet me at the park or you'll miss the joyride," he killed the call with a press of a button and then started texting Drew.
Park in 40 min.
He shut his phone off, done with both of them. He had no intention of going to the park. As soon as they left this hell hole he was taking his mom home and crashing for the next several hours. His brain wasn't firing on all cylinders at the moment, between the hangover, lack of sleep, and the deterioration of his mom as well as the bizarre conversation with Linda the last thing on his mind was the conflict between Drew and Johnny. By no means had he intentionally set the two up to cross paths without him present to referee, at least not consciously. The sub-conscious, on the other hand, is an entirely different animal.
Jack tipped the worn bill of his dirty ball-cap down, trying to hide his eyes from the sun. "So what's your interest in the young punks anyway? I can't see them being much use at anything. The only thing they know how to do is party."
"Intoxication usually softens the clay of the human soul," the fiend lifted up his hands, flexing his fingers as if he was kneading something. "Makes you mortals much more malleable."
Pride was one of the few sins that had dried up and drifted away in the vassal known as Jack Rat. The only remnants left of this dark emotion involved his prowess as a warrior. Even in his elder years, he still viewed himself as dangerous in body and strong in will. To be insinuated that he was a puppet to anyone or anything stirred up anger in his old, dried up alcy bones.
Their eyes met and held, rage was obvious in Jack's; chilly amusement in the demons. The slight smile on the fiend slowly faded as the staring contest continued in heavy silence.
"Give me the blade," the monster commanded. The amusement was gone from its look, just the ice remained.
"Why?" Jack asked through clenched teeth.
"Cause I've let you hold on to it long enough, I need it back now."
"I found that knife in Nam, before I met you. It's mine."
"The moment you found that switchblade, you found me and you know it. That blade is not just mine, it's a part of me. You think you're the first person to ever use it?"
Jack looked down at the weapon, knowing that someone had stuck it in a dead gook's throat, which was where he had found it. But he had never thought anything else about it. Why would someone have just left such a sweet blade sticking in a dead Cong's neck instead of taking it with?
"Cause he didn't have the strength to carry such a powerful weapon," the demon answered. "So he left it like the coward he was. Good thing you came along and picked up the slack."
The fiend let out a sigh. "That boy has been such a disappointment in so many ways in his lifetime. You know his daddy had carried that knife before him. I let him find it in Germany back in WW2. Now that man knew how to carve up flesh," it glanced at Jacky, "Not quite as good as you, but he did that death tool justice. It only made sense to pass it on to his boy when he went off to Nam. It was going to be a new family tradition," the monster chuckled for a moment but it quickly turned to a sigh. "Course he blew that one, just like all the other opportunities I gave him."
Jack's eyes squinted up. "Who had this knife before me?"
The demon's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Hadn't you figured that out by now? Frank stabbed that gook about four hours before you found the knife. That weapon pretty much went straight from his hand to yours, via one dead Cong anyway."
"So I'm one step away from being like Frank in your eyes?"
"Of course not," the demon replied. "You've never let me down, you've never gone pussy on me. You're my man!"
"I'm your tool, same as the knife."
Jack pulled the switchblade from the back pocket of his faded and worn out jeans. His thumb rubbing back and forth on the ebony hilt, sliding the safety off almost coincidently. Almost.
"Go ahead," the demon said, reading his mind. "What do you need me for anyway? Our history, our loyalty to one another, our t
ime together in the tunnels, that don't mean shit, right?" A little bit of red flashed behind its cold eyes.
"Right," Jack agreed. "Don't mean shit." The blade snapped open, the tip pointing at the fiend. "Cause you ain't nothin' but a pimp and I'm your twenty dollar whore."
The fiend's teeth were quite sharp as he smiled. "Twenty bucks? I didn't know you felt so highly of yourself."
And with that, the battle was on. Jack went full on at the demon, slicing a thin ribbon of blood on the fiend's face as he wove his knife around like a Shaolin monk. The demon replied with a roar that sounded like something that would come from a diseased lion as talons suddenly appeared from the tips of its fingers. Bringing its claws toward Jack's ribs, it unlocked its jaw and shot forward at the mortal's neck.
Jack stabbed the monster's left wrist, stopping it cold. He grabbed the wrist of the demon's right hand, pushing back, trying to escape the beast's jaws. The beast followed after him as he rolled backwards, trailing his jugular.
Their eyes met for a brief moment on that painful morning and the demon was truly impressed with Jack, for there was no fear in the orbs of his soul, only the fight.
"Only mortals can be this good as suicide soldiers," the hell monster thought to itself as it let Jack escape its jaws, pushing it off with a cheap ass judo roll. "Time well spent with this one."
It let the momentum carry it into the wall of the trailer, allowing the collision to look more forceful than it really was, in hopes of boosting Jack's morale even more. With a low growl, the demon looked back at Jack, holding its wounded wrist, making the damage seem more severe. "So what now, tough guy? You got the balls to end this or what?"
"Why not?" Jack stepped forward, knife first. "It's not like we're buddies."
"No we're not buds," dark blood seeped out of the corner of its mouth as it slowly slid down to the ground. "We're partners, working together to do the best we can in a shit world."
The knife was right in the demon's face. "No, you have always thought you were the one in charge, always treating me like your fucking lackey."
"We're all fucking lackeys! I'm no different than you on that. Do you think I make up all the rules? Do you think I'm the one that makes shit this way?" It pointed to the trailer out in the middle of nowhere. "Do you think I wanted you out here in your shitty fortress of solitude drinking yourself to death?" A lone blood-tainted tear fell from one of the beast's eyes, which in truth made a crocodile's tear sincere. "I'm no different than you, which is why we gotta stick together."
The knife drifted back from the fiend's face as Jack looked him in the eye for a long moment. "It's hard to be somebody's bitch, you know?"
"Nobody knows that better than us, my man."
Jack closed up the knife and handed it over.
"Thanks," the fiend replied. "Like taking candy from a baby," the monster thought to itself, knowing full well it hadn't been that easy; it was just trying to reassure itself that the situation hadn't really almost gotten out of its control. Demons lie to everyone else, why not themselves?
The official name of the park was Bonn-James Park, which was named after the last names of two long dead business men that were the first people to make a killing on the railroad over one hundred years ago in Storm Illinois. The only thing left of these two men's legacies was the park name, which very few townsfolk knew anything about.
The three hoodlums who had agreed to meet at this local landmark referred to it as BJ Park. Mainly from a story that Johnny had told a couple years back that exemplified his sexual prowess with the ladies. A story that Drew always pointed out lacked any substantial proof that any of it ever took place. Regardless of the validity of the tale, the nickname stuck.
It was in this park, that Johnny sat on a pick-nick table, waiting for Jake.
"What the hell is the hold up?" he asked a nearby squirrel, tapping his one hitter box as a desperate need of a cigarette chewed at his brain. His swollen nose throbbed constantly, and still dripped blood occasionally.
Drew's old Ford answered his question as it pulled into view.
Johnny glared at the huge car. "What--"
"--the hell is this?" Drew finished as he saw Johnny.
The two antagonists looked at one another for a long moment, neither knowing what to think or do.
"Pussy probably won't even get out of the car," Johnny thought to himself, glaring at Drew.
Drew seemed to read his mind, opening his door and making his way towards Johnny. His left eye was black and swollen, his right eye looked slightly better.
"What are you looking at?" Johnny called out.
Drew stopped about three steps from Johnny. "I'm looking at someone who seriously got their ass kicked last night."
"Sounds like you're itching for round two."
Drew raised his hands, palms up. "Whatever."
The woman from the night before whispered in Johnny's head. "Be cool," it said. "You don't need this fat-ass, but you do need Jake, and you don't want to damage your friendship any worse than you already have with him because of this lardo."
Johnny nodded slightly, actually understanding what the point was of the demon's words. "In all honesty, I came out here to chill, not get in another throw down."
"Same here," Drew replied with a nod.
"Jake is supposed to meet me out here," Johnny said. "He tell you the same thing?"
Drew held up his cell phone. "Texted me to meet him."
"So I'm guessing he was going to be the diplomat and try and smooth things out with us."
Drew shrugged. "He was going to be the mediator I'm guessing."
Johnny pointed at Drew. "Exactly, that's what he is going to be." Johnny had never heard the word mediator before, but he just went with it. "So, why don't we just cool our jets while we wait for him to show?"
Drew nodded, sitting down beside Johnny, lighting up a cigarette.
"Bum a smoke?" Johnny asked.
Drew turned on him like an angry cobra. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
Johnny held out his one hitter box. "C'mon man, I'll share, how about you?"
With a shake of his head, Drew traded his pack of smokes for the box and they both lit up in silence, waiting for Jake.
With the workday coming to an end, Steve looked down into the recently found burial pit, slowly rubbing dirt on his forehead with his hand as his mind buzzed with more morbid evidence from the recent find.
"You moonlight as a cat-burglar, boss?" A voice from behind him said.
Steve turned to see one of the excavators, holding out a bandana to him. "Your rubbing dirt on yer head."
Steve let out a chuckle, taking the cloth. "Too busy thinking to pay attention to what I'm doing."
"Yeah, that's the problem with you smart guys, you can multi-task." He adjusted the brim of his hat that advertised farm equipment. "It's a lot easier for us simpletons, we can only do one thing at a time."
Steve thought he knew all the workers on the dig but this guy didn't look familiar. "Thanks," he said, handing back the bandanna. "I worked construction back in the summertime when I was in college, and I don't believe the simpleton remark nor the inability of you guys not being able to multi-task. That was the hardest damn job I ever had, and if I wasn't thinking on my toes at all times, I was either going to get myself or someone else hurt."
The excavator gave him a smile. "Thanks for the kind words boss," he looked down into the burial pit. "So what's the dark story behind this?"
Steve studied the worker's face, wondering what his archeologically untrained eye had picked up. "What do you mean?"
He hunkered down, getting a closer look at the bones and debris in the pit. "It reminds me of this old horror flick I watched back in the eighties when I was a kid. One of those old grind-house movies they played on cable in the dead of night, you remember when they used to do that?"
"Sure, B-rated slasher flicks and such."
He looked back up at Steve with a point. "Right, right. The good ol
e' days, huh?"
Steve nodded with a smile. "Sure was."
He pointed back at the pit. "This reminds me of one that took place in South America, deep in the rain forest. These scientists, or professors or whatever they were," he looked back at Steve, not sure he was using the right terms.
"Sure," Steve nodded his head, not seeing the point of correcting him for the sake of the conversation.
"Anyways, they find this isolated tribe that no one knew existed until now. So they're all excited and shit, quickly following them back to their camp, not even telling anyone else where they're going."
"Sounds about right."
"Yeah, but this is when it gets really weird. See, two of the scientists are a married couple, and not long into the movie the shaman tells her she is pregnant, which is news to them. Being the scientific type they just blow it off and continue to study this long lost tribe, thinking it's just mumbo jumbo."
Steve gave a little nod, starting to get bored with the recap of the impossible horror story. There were tribes that were isolated from the rest of society in South America, even to this day. But that was because that was the way the tribe wanted to live, not because they lived in some secret valley no one could find. The simple truth of it was the few tribes that were left were losing their homes from the violence of all the guerilla warfare raging through those same jungles.
"So, during the research they come across this pit, where they find the bones of children, but this is where it gets really fucked up. Ya see, the bones show that the kids had been eaten but not by bears or lions or anything. There is no evidence of bite marks from those kind of teeth. It's also at this point they notice there are no children in the tribe."
"Because anthropologist wouldn't notice something like that until deep into the tribal study," Steve said with a laugh.
"Right," the excavator replied, completely missing Steve's sarcasm. "So they start getting spooked out and shit, and that's when they come across another burial pit, with the same children's bones and shit, but this one's new, not all old and fossilized and shit like the first pit. That's when the natives show up and take everybody prisoner, taking them back to this big bonfire where the shaman makes them all drink this funky cold Medina drink that makes them all trip out and see these disturbing visions of the past. It shows them that this tribe is made up of a bunch of immortal monsters that stay alive forever by eating babies."
The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy) Page 15