Rated R (The Postmodern Adventures of Kill Team One Book 1)

by Mike Leon

  The ninja falls.

  Victor reloads the gun to fire another magazine into the carcass. He isn’t finished. Winning is one thing, but he prefers to completely obliterate anyone who stands in his way. He smacks the magazine into the MAC-10 and is interrupted by shots fired at his head.

  He spins to greet his brother. Shooting at him with an assault rifle, Sid stands in front of a dimly lit storefront only thirty yards away. It is adorned with palm trees and an outcropped stucco roof, which Sid must’ve jumped to from upstairs to get down here so quickly.

  “Haven’t you learned that shooting at me is a pointless waste of time, Sid?” Victor says. He holds his arms outstretched, welcoming the bullets he feels buzzing past his face.

  “It might be, but it feels good,” Sid hollers back.

  Victor responds by throwing a grenade at his brother. Sid catches it and pitches it into Hollister. It’s one of the stores Victor threw a satchel charge into earlier.

  “Oh my,” Victor says. He turns and runs.

  “Go ahead and run!” Sid yells. “You can’t fight me, puss—”

  Boom! Hollister explodes into an inferno that envelops Sid and brings most of the second floor down on top of him.

  EXT. MALL PARKING – DAY

  Lily hears an explosion inside the mall. She doesn’t look back; she just presses forward, lugging the MacGuffin along in her ruined hand.

  A police cruiser screeches to a stop in front of her. A woman in a tank top and body armor leans over to yell at her through the passenger side window.

  “Get in!” she says, pushing the passenger door open.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Lily says, stopping next to the car.

  “Just get in!”

  This is not okay. Lily doesn’t know who the fuck this bitch is. She’s not a cop—that’s almost for sure. She glances back at the mall. An image of raw terror presents itself.

  Victor saunters through the mall exit, brandishing his remote detonator in the air like a barbarian’s sword in a Frank Frazetta painting. He opens his mouth to wag his tongue at her as he pulls the trigger down. The mall blows up behind him. The glass doors burst into shards and a wave of flame consumes the corridors inside.

  Victor does not look back at the explosion.

  Lily gets in the car. As she plunks down in the passenger seat, she thinks she may not be able to stand up again. She pulls the door closed and the car is already moving—not forward, but backward.

  “What are you doing?” Lily yells to the woman in the driver’s seat.

  “I’m gonna run the fucker down,” she yells back.

  The car whips around until Victor is square in the middle of the windshield ahead of them. He beckons them forward. Lily clutches the oh-shit grip with her good hand and screams as the car burns into a start and zooms toward him.

  Victor stands his ground as they close in on him. The engine noise grows into a roar as the car picks up speed. Victor leans forward, baring his teeth.

  “Die, you son of a bitch!” the driver growls.

  Lily squeezes the grip harder as she anticipates a blood-soaked two hundred pound nightmare smashing through the windshield and into her face.

  Victor vaults the car. Lily glimpses the bottoms of his feet as he goes over the windshield and out of sight.

  “What?” Lily shrieks.

  The driver cuts the wheel and mashes the brake down. The car fishtails around completely to make another pass.

  “I’m gonna get the fucker!” she shouts.

  Victor leaps on the hood of the car. He balls his fist in front of them, smashing it through the glass.

  Helen mashes down on the gas, but Victor grabs the wheel and the cruiser crashes into a parked car.

  Victor still clutches the wheel through the broken glass. He pulls back, straining and screaming as he rips the windshield from the front of the car and tosses it to the pavement next to them. The big glass panel hits the ground with a loud crack.

  “Fuck!” Lily screams, fighting with the door.

  “Die! Die! Die!” the driver yells, pointing a shotgun through the broken out windshield. Victor snatches it away and punches her in the jaw.

  Lily opens the door and stumbles from the car. Her feet barely make it to the blacktop before he’s on top of her. He shoves her against the frame of the police cruiser, pinning her there.

  “I’ll get what I want,” Victor says. “I always get what I want.”

  He pries the MacGuffin from Lily’s broken hand. It feels like a hundred nails being hammered into her knuckles from every direction at once. Lily groans, simply trying not to black out.

  “Hey, shitbird!” shouts a voice Lily doesn’t know, from what sounds like a few dozen feet away. She snaps her attention to the source of the shouting and Victor does too, providing a brief respite from whatever torture he has planned for her next.

  On the blacktop over Victor’s shoulder stand six leather-clad figures with skin weathered by years of sun bleaching and picker’s sores. They appear wild and greasy, with broken teeth and faces crunched crooked.

  It’s Ted’s biker gang.

  “I’m talkin’ to you, shitbird!” says the largest of the crew. He has a gun in his hand and a mane of gray that conceals all but the top half of his face. He points at Victor. “That bitch is mine!”

  Victor shifts his eyes back to Lily. “You know these people?” he says.

  “It’s a long story,” she says.

  Victor whips a handgun out of his duster and fires off a thunderous string of shots, spilling the biker gang’s brains all over the parking lot behind him. After all six of them lie dead, Victor discards the empty gun to the ground.

  “Well that was pointless,” he says.

  “Yeah,” Lily agrees.

  “Now, cunt,” Victor whispers in her ear. “Scream.”

  Victor squeezes down on her swollen hand. She feels the bones in her fingers snapping. She can even hear them, but she doesn’t scream. She sinks her teeth into his neck, biting down as hard as she can. His putrid blood fills her mouth and runs down her chin.

  Victor pushes her head against the passenger window of the cruiser, tearing her teeth from him in the process. She spits his blood in his face and he laughs. She tries to scream, but all that comes out is a shrill cry as she dribbles gore on herself.

  “You have no idea how much that turns me on,” he says. He puts a hand on top of her head and forces her down, pressing his chest against her face, smothering her in his meaty abs. She can’t scream. She can’t move. She can’t breathe. The bold script on his bare chest fills her bloody vision. Rapegod.

  “What does it say?” he yells, pushing her back from his chest. She gasps for air. She chokes on blood. “What does it say!”

  Lily is about to tell him, but then sees something both terrible and exciting.

  From the inferno that used to be the mall exit, Sid emerges. Smeared with soot and blood, fresh char marks burned onto his left arm over all the old scars, he marches forward like a hound of hell.

  “Victor!” Sid shouts, his big black knife outstretched to point at the bastard. His eyes bulge with rage.

  Victor releases her from his unshakable grip, whipping around to face his brother. Lily slides to the ground, her head flopping to the pavement next to the cruiser. She can’t run anymore. She can’t even stand on her own. She slides under the wrecked police car. It’s a good enough place to crawl away and die.

  EXT. GALLERIA - DAY

  The rage is all-consuming now. Sid has been shot at, stabbed, burned and blown up by his brother—mostly today. But somehow, none of it makes him angrier than seeing Victor hurt Lily. Before, the possibility of his brother playing with her—doing the things he does—seemed like a far-off idea, an abstract occurrence enacted by imaginary characters. Now it is very real and right in front of him.

  “I’m gonna rip your guts out!” Sid yells.

  Victor grins at him as Lily pushes herself underneath the car at his feet.
The pale bastard holds the MacGuffin in his left hand.

  “I’ve already got what I want,” Victor says. Then he turns and dashes around the car, disappearing into the grid of parked vehicles beyond the cruiser. It is uncharacteristic of his brother to run from a fight—and to leave living witnesses. Victor must know he’s winning by taking that case with him.

  Sid follows him into the rows of cars.

  This place is a death trap. His brother could pounce from around any corner, or even from the top of a taller vehicle. Sid slows his pace as he goes, but not too slow. He can’t afford to lose Victor now.

  He whips around the corner of a tall SUV and a hysterical woman comes dashing right for him, breathing heavily and dripping with tears and drool. He ducks out of the way.

  Victor pops around a corner and fires at him with the MAC-10. Sid jumps for cover. Five shots bury themselves in the body of the SUV and another one smashes through the rear window. Sid leaps back around the corner, but sees no sign of his brother.

  “Too slow!” Victor taunts from somewhere in the parking grid.

  He hears something from up ahead. Sid steps out into the open aisle just in time to see a body being hurled his way. He steps aside, and the limp form of an older man in ratty clothes flops down beside him on the blacktop, the head twisted backward to face up at him even as the body is facedown.

  Folding doors creak closed and a diesel engine growls as a wall of yellow steel in front of him begins to move. His brother is stealing a school bus. Muffled screaming and the pounding of tiny hands on the windows alert Sid that it is occupied.

  He draws his KA-BAR knife and stabs it into the side paneling near the rear right corner of the bus. He hangs on to the knife as the bus chugs forward through the parking lot. Sid finds another hold by punching out a back window and gripping the frame. He needs to get to the front of the bus.

  Sid yanks the KA-BAR from the side panel and reaches for the roof. He drives it down through the top of the bus and pulls himself up.

  INT. SCHOOL BUS – DAY

  Victor pushes down on the accelerator, shredding the bus’s tires out into the street. He swerves into traffic and smashes into a small sedan along the way. The hulking bus spins the tiny car about-face as Victor cackles. The children’s screams fill his ears. This is really living.

  A glance in the mirror above him, reflecting the inside of the bus, reveals two dozen children he guesses to be about age five tumbling over seat backs and sliding down the aisle between. One of them clutches the metal leg of a green vinyl bus seat to avoid being thrown. Behind the children, he sees the unmistakable pointed black blade of a USMC KA-BAR knife sticking out of the ceiling. He has unwanted company.

  He can’t shoot Sid, but he could possibly shake him from the bus. Victor reaches back and points a MAC-10 at the rear corner of the bus. He opens fire. The children scream louder.

  EXT. SCHOOL BUS – DAY

  Bullets punch through the metal bus frame all around Sid as he pulls his way forward along the roof. He curses, shifting to his side to make himself a slimmer target, but the bus swerves sharply to the left. Sid loses his footing and goes over the side, dangling from the top of the bus with only his knife to hold onto. A white tractor trailer rumbles along at his back, a giant Frito-Lay® emblem plastered across its side.

  “Fuck this,” Sid says, pulling himself back up to the roof of the bus. More bullets punch through the roof around him as he draws the KA-BAR out, stabbing it three feet closer to the fore of the bus. He drags himself forward. Then again. Ahead of him is the emergency escape hatch mounted on top of the bus. He drives forward another few feet and then reaches out and grabs the hatch. He pulls himself up over it and tears at the door. It doesn’t open from the outside. He roars with frustration.

  Sid drives the KA-BAR into the hatch to lever it open. It pops up with surprising ease, but stops after just a few inches. He puts his fingers in the gap and rips the door from the skinny metal rods holding it in place. He throws the hatch behind him. It skitters overboard and crashes into the road behind the bus as he leaps down the hatch.

  His brother is waiting for him at the front of the bus. Victor stands with his back turned to the windshield. No one is driving, and he doesn’t seem to care. He pulls back on a handle behind him to open the doors.

  “I love these things!” Victor shouts. “They even come with cruise control!” Then he leaps through the open doors at the front of the bus and out into traffic. Sid sees him catch the side of the Frito-Lay® tractor trailer in the right lane next to them.

  “Seriously?” Sid says. He charges to the front of the bus, past a gaggle of screeching children, and over one child lying in the aisle between the seats. He can see the bus careening over the yellow line in the road, inching its way into the path of oncoming traffic and certain doom.

  He jumps into the driver’s seat and jerks the wheel back to the right. An oncoming dump truck takes the left rearview mirror off the bus with a sharp metallic clank. Sid mashes down on the brake and children sail forward in their seats. The one on the aisle floor slides to the front and comes to rest at his feet.

  The bus comes to a complete stop on an overpass overlooking the freeway. Sid steps over the child on the floor and stomps down the stairs to exit. Outside, he puts his hand up to stop the next car in the right lane. His plan is to hijack that vehicle to continue the chase. Then he notices something.

  The truck his brother jumped on doesn’t continue along the same road. It turns right onto a freeway ramp. The ramp loops around to connect with the freeway and then leads back under the overpass Sid is standing on. Victor didn’t count on that.

  Sid crouches behind the concrete barrier as he waits for the big white semi to come around. He hears the blare of sirens nearing his position as he lines up the jump.

  “Hey! Buddy!” a man yells from behind him. Sid glances back to see a tall man in a gray T-shirt yelling at him from a stopped car. “Stop!”

  Sid doesn’t care.

  He jumps over the barrier.

  The roof of the trailer sinks in a few inches under his feet as he slams into it, rolling backward down to the aft end. He lashes out with the KA-BAR to keep himself from flying off the back end. As the knife sticks, it’s nearly ripped from his iron grasp by the momentum of the truck as it barrels down the freeway. He strains to hold on, but he does. A second later, he stands.

  Victor is already there to greet him. He drops the suitcase at his side.

  Sid pulls his KA-BAR from the roof at his feet.

  “This is a terrible idea,” he yells over the noise. The spinning tires all around them howl along the freeway. The wind ripping across him makes it hard to hear much of anything.

  “I love terrible ideas,” Victor shouts back. He flashes his wavy knife at Sid, and the fight is on.

  Victor begins with a series of forward jabs that Sid bobs around. He parries the last and returns with a riposte that rattles Victor’s grasp on his weapon.

  “You’re angry,” his brother grunts.

  “I’m tired of your shit,” Sid says.

  “I’m tired of your whining.”

  “I’m gonna keep on whining after you’re dead.”

  Sid flips his blade in hand and lunges at Victor with a downward stab. Victor catches his wrist while returning his own identical attack. Sid catches Victor’s forearm with his left hand. The two of them struggle for the upper hand, knife points inches from open eyes.

  Victor kicks Sid away. Sid slashes at his leg as he tumbles backward.

  “You son of a bitch,” Victor says. He refuses to inspect his bleeding shin, but Sid can see it oozing down his black pants leg already.

  “She’s your mommy too,” Sid growls back.

  “You never knew her.” Victor comes at him, slashing and thrusting. Sid can barely keep up with the onslaught of razor steel. He has to back up—the last resort. In matters of close combat, it is always better to move laterally.

  Victor takes adva
ntage and advances. There’s no footing left on the truck. Sid tries to sidestep, but Victor steps to the same side. He lunges at Sid again. Sid goes over the edge of the trailer.

  He reaches out and snatches the undercarriage before he goes under a set of monstrous spinning tires. The freeway blacktop buzzes past the top of his head. He looks up to see Victor, gloating down on him over the edge. He won’t be able to climb back up to the top with his brother waiting there to stab him.

  He has another plan.

  Sid winks up at Victor as he slides his KA-BAR back in its sheath and draws a COLT .45. He points it at the tires next to his head and blows them both out. Victor frowns. Sid blows out two sets of tires and starts on the third before the squealing brakes engage and the force of the halting truck swings him forward. He hangs on.

  The truck squeals left and right as it slows, coming to a stop haphazardly across both lanes of the freeway. Sid drops down to the pavement, looking up for Victor but seeing nothing. He leaps to his feet, expecting his brother to be on top of him already. Still nothing.

  The driver’s door opens and two thick brown boots set down on the pavement. He’s a tall man in a leather vest with a long gray beard and shiny bald head.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the truck driver yells, raging toward Sid. The driver’s muscular arms pump with anger. “What the fuck are you doing on my rig?” He points with black fingerless gloves.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Sid says, shaking his head.

  “The fuck you do! You’re gonna pay for all of—”

  Sid cracks the truck driver in the jaw with a flying knee that lifts the man off his feet and sprawls him out on the blacktop. He leaves the driver heaped on the street and looks back up at the truck.

  Still no sign of Victor. If he hasn’t pounced yet, then he’s gone somewhere. Victor wouldn’t sit there on top of the truck. He’d keep moving.

  Sid glances up and down the freeway. Behind them, the cars are already lining up behind the jack-knifed truck. He sees no sign of Victor ahead or in the grassy median that separates them from traffic bound the other way. On the other side of the truck is a tall sound-wall that would’ve blocked Victor in. Unless . . .