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

by Mike Leon

  “You gonna make good on our deal?” he says, placing his hands on her hips.

  She snatches his wrists. “What did I tell you about hands?”

  “Sit on them,” he says, placing them back where they belong.

  “That’s right,” she says, undoing his belt buckle. “Don’t make me call Big Dave in here.”

  Lily puts her hand on his face as she rises up, then comes down, impaling herself on his rock-hard cock. She squeaks as it enters her. It hurts for only a second. She takes a deep breath and begins rocking like a ship on the ocean.

  This is what she owes him, but she enjoys it too much for that.

  Her eyes are closed when she feels his hand around the back of her head, pulling her down to his level.

  “No,” she whispers. She can’t fight him, but it’s not because he’s so much stronger than her.

  She feels his lips against hers, his tongue pushing in, penetrating her in a way more intimate than she has ever known. She opens her mouth to accept him fully. His tongue tickles against hers. She likes this. She wants this. She wants more.

  “I—” she starts. She looks back into those void-like eyes. What did Quint say? Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes . . .

  It’s better with no words, she decides.

  She keeps kissing him, and letting his hands go where they want. She climaxes twice before he can endure no more and releases inside her.

  She flops down on the sectional next to him.

  “I feel like a Bond girl,” she says, sighing deeply.

  “I don’t know what that is,” Sid says. Of course he doesn’t.

  “Our time’s almost up.”

  “So this is it?” he asks. “You’re a stripper now.”

  “Oh, I’m just doing this to pay for college,” Lily says, fluttering into an impression of an ultra bimbo.

  “Really?” he says.

  “No!” She punches him in the shoulder. “Ass!” She falls back on the sectional and chuckles.

  “I’m saving money to produce a slasher film,” she says, digging through her clutch for her Marlboro cigarettes. “I’ve already got twenty grand.”

  “Is that a lot?” he asks, putting his pants back on.

  “Yeah. That’s a lot.” She laughs. He’s like a space alien sometimes.

  He stands up from the sectional and buckles his pants.

  Lily draws a cigarette from the box as he walks away. She holds it in her hand, staring at it. There’s something missing. She doesn’t feel the compulsion she once did. She puts the cigarette down.

  “Sid?” she calls. He stops in the doorway and turns back to her. “You want to see a movie with me?” she says.

  FADE OUT

  Directed by MIKE LEON

  Story by MIKE LEON

  Screenplay by MIKE LEON

  Produced by TYPING

  Executive Producers MOSTLY DO NOTHING

  Director of Photography IS A REAL THING

  Art Director RACHEL LANG

  Costume Design ARE YOU READING THIS?

  Set Design YOU SHOULD LEAVE THE THEATER

  Music by OTHER PEOPLE ARE LEAVING

  Visual Effects Supervisor SOME POOR BASTARD WHOSE STUDIO WE DROVE INTO BANKRUPTCY

  Casting by HUGE PACKAGING AGENCY

  A Basement of Doom Production

  A Mike Leon Film

  Second Unit Director YOUR FRIEND IS LOOKING AT YOU

  Unit Production Manager IT’S THAT LOOK

  First Assistant Director THEY WONDER IF YOU LIKED IT

  Second Assistant Director BUT THEY’RE NOT SURE

  Gaffer SO NOW IT’S AN AWKWARD GAME OF CHICKEN

  Best Boy TO SEE WHO SPEAKS FIRST

  Key Grip AS IF THEY MIGHT DISOWN YOU

  Animal Handler BECAUSE YOU LIKED THE MOVIE

  A Camera Operator NO MOVIE IS THAT BAD THOUGH

  A Camera First Assistant WELL

  A Camera Second Assistant MAYBE MAC AND ME

  B Camera Operator I WOULD DISOWN YOU FOR THAT

  B Camera First Assistant OR BATTLEFIELD EARTH

  B Camera Second 6 VENEZUELAN RED LLAMAS

  C Camera Operator OH GREAT

  Digital Imaging Technician THERE’S ANOTHER SCENE

  Camera Loader IT’LL PROBABLY SET UP A SEQUEL

  INT. VIDEO TIME – BACK ROOM – DAY

  “Christian, come look at this,” says Addison. She rifles through the stack of old movie posters sitting on a chipped desk in the back of the store. Most of them are the kind of trash that just feeds the right-wing rape culture in this country, but there’s one that would look good in the front room.

  “What is it, babe?” Christian says. He steps into the room, sipping a kombucha tea from a bottle. His Morrissey T-shirt has grey filth on it and there’s soot on his fingers.

  Addison pulls her amazing find from the stack and holds it up for him to see. It’s an original poster for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

  “Oh, wow,” Christian says, brushing his fingers off on his sarong. “That’s great. We can hang it over the vinyl display. Very indie rock. I cleared some space in the corner up front for the reading area with the vegan cookbooks and socialist literature.”

  “Did you cancel the order for those gluten-free cookies?” Addison asks, narrowing her eyes at him. He has a tendency to forget things. She sets the movie poster carefully back on the stack.

  “I sure did.” He frowns in disgust. “I can’t believe they were made with hydrogenated oil and dairy products. Disgusting.”

  “That’s what you get for listening to ovo-lacto vegetarians.” The couple who recommended the cookies still eat dairy. They probably think it’s okay to eat the fries at McMurder too. Addison is sick of these kids jumping on the cruelty-free bandwagon just because they saw a Chipotle ad.

  “They’re such poseurs.” Christian rolls his eyes. “They really are.”

  “Oh Christian, this is going to be the best eco café in the whole city.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I just keep wondering how we got the building so cheap.”

  “You can’t accept that some people are more interested in reinvesting in the community than being greedy capitalist pigs?”

  “Well, I guess,” he says, shrugging. “But five thousand dollars? What if it’s haunted or something?”

  “That kind of pessimism isn’t going to win the war against feedlots and fast food.”

  “Did you hear that?” Christian’s head whips around toward the showroom.

  “Hear what?” Addison says. She chuckles.

  “Out front.” Christian leans out into the showroom through the open door and then back into the stockroom with her. “I thought I heard something.”

  “You can’t scare me. I don’t believe in ghosts.” She bends down to the floor, scooping up some aluminum display hangers. There are hundreds of the damn things back here, mostly just spread around the floor like garbage. “Help me pick up these metal pegs. I don’t know what we’re going to do with them yet. I don’t think they’re recyclable.”

  “Addison?”

  She stands up straight. “What?”

  In front of them, blocking the door to the front room, stands a man taller than either of them, taller than the door, taller than anyone she has ever met. He’s dressed all in black, except for his head. His face . . .

  His face is a terrifying mass of ruined flesh, charred and bloody like flash-cooked burger. There are no lips to hide his collection of pointed fangs or blood-dripping tongue. One bloodshot eye bulges with rage; the other is just an empty socket dripping with red slime.

  The monster raises a butcher’s cleaver over his head, nearly clipping the ceiling. Addison screams as the cleaver comes down, splitting Christian’s head in two. Hot blood sprays in her eyes and mouth.

  “Fresh meat!”

  FREE STUFF!

  If you liked Rated R, click this link to sign up for my mailing list, and the computer machine will give you a free copy of my
superhero comedy novel, Supervillainous! Confessions of a Costumed Evil-Doer.

  Supervillainous!

  If you really liked Rated R, make sure you leave a review on Amazon.

  In the rest of the series, Sid works at GameStop, gets hunted by an army of suicide bombers, and battles a mind-controlling swarm of communist nanomachines.

  The Postmodern Adventures of Kill Team One

  And join the Graveyard on Facebook for free giveaways and other stuff.

  Here’s the first chapter of Godless Murder Machine:

  EXT. EGYPT – SHARM EL-SHEIKH - NIGHT

  To the infidels, the burqa is a prison, a dungeon where innocents are thrown and kept, never to see the light of day. To the people of faith, it is a cover, a sheath to protect those outside from the lure of the ’awrah, the shameful parts within. To Fatimah, it is a shield.

  The burqa shields her from the others and their disgusted stares, from pointing children and laughing men. It hides her flesh and her hate. Under her shield, she is just another faceless woman.

  “How many will this make?” The question comes in Pashto from the cold barbarian of a man who accompanies her. Sayyid al-Dhafiri. His head is bald, but his chin supports a lengthy and coarse black beard with a few dyed red vertical stripes. His dull brown eyes are dim and listless, and Fatimah sometimes wonders if his unquestioning devotion to Allah has left no independent thoughts swirling behind them.

  “Seven,” she answers. The crowd continues through the streets around them, a river of flamboyant transgressors flowing through a dark wood of neon-colored sin. The city of Sharm el-Sheikh is a blight upon the Egyptian land. They have flung modesty to the wind here and the women show their faces and bodies. Men poison themselves with alcohol. Even the women drink. The air is thick with their perfume stink and unashamed laughter.

  “Allah is merciful,” Sayyid says.

  “Most merciful,” Fatimah says, but her response is distant, aloof, dead. Most would overlook this, but she knows Sayyid will notice. He can detect even the slightest hint of unbelief and never fails to confront it.

  “You have doubts?”

  Fatimah tilts her head low as she finds the words. She begins to answer, but a crowd of squealing kuffar women stumbles by, loudly and drunkenly singing of lewd acts. This is not their place. They belong half a world away or fueling the fires of Jahannam, not here in the land of believers interrupting her conversation. She waits for them to pass.

  “Each time I pray for death,” Fatimah says. “And each time it does not come.”

  Sayyid nods grimly.

  “That is because Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, has a plan for you,” he says. “Soon the pain will end, but first you must truly submit to His will.”

  “I am truly devoted. What more could I possibly give to prove it? Ask any act. Ask any piece of me and I will cut it away in offering.”

  “I do not doubt you, but Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, does not reward offerings. He does not barter in exchange for your desires. He is not a merchant. He is a ruler.”

  “What must I do?” she asks.

  “You must only understand you are insignificant. Your desires matter not. Only His plan matters. Serve Him. Serve His plan.”

  “I live to serve Him. If I die, it will be to serve Him.” Her answer is stiff, almost sullen, hardly the way it should be.

  “Do not despair, Fatimah,” he says. “I have already received word of our next great conquest. A great enemy of the caliphate has been found in the United States. You know him. The coward. The demon from the dark. The great pig of strife and suffering.”

  Even without any other detail, Fatimah knows who he means. For years she has burned with hate for this monster. In the mountains back home, they speak of him—of the devil with skin as black as night and a face like a skull. They tell tales of entire villages murdered quietly in the night, except the young girls, who were carried away to satiate some dark amusement. They still hang wards in the trees near those places to keep him away. They call him Djinn, Ghul, Gallu, Ifrit, and sometimes Shaytan, but Fatimah knows he is none of these things, and she has a much simpler name for him.

  “The Beast.”

  Her heart beats faster and her breathing becomes difficult to stay. This is far too fortunate to be a thing of chance. It can only be her destiny.

  “I will do this thing,” she exclaims without hearing another word. “Nothing would please me more.”

  “First, you will finish what you started here,” Sayyid says. “Then we will seek out our enemy and destroy him. This is the will of Allah, may He be glorified and exalted.”

  “Yes,” Fatimah says, nodding enthusiastically. “May He be glorified and exalted.”

  “Go now,” he says, turning to depart.

  Fatimah is already making her way down the street, past rainbow colored lights dangling from palm trees and windows struggling to contain heavy bass beats. She doesn’t hear the blasphemous music, though. She is too consumed with raw emotion—the only emotion that remains within her.

  She turns to her right, walking through the open doorway she saw the wretched kafir enter before her. She steps into a world of bright colors flashing in darkness and wiggling bodies grinding together with sweaty lust. Sparkling disco balls and fish-shaped aluminum cutouts spin on strands of wire above her head. A musclebound and tight-shirted man just inside the door yells at her over the ear-bleeding thumps from the speakers. Fatimah has no interest in what he has to say. She brushes past him and runs for the dance floor.

  The dancers gather in the middle of the club on a waxed wooden floor surrounded by carpeted space with couches and translucent bars lit with neon colors shaped like fish. Near the edge of the mass of teeming bodies, Fatimah spies one of the drunken women from outside. She only has to push through one or two other people to reach the wicked non-believer. A man in a loose fitting white shirt snarls as she scrapes past him, knocking a green-tinted glass from his hands to shatter on the floor. The woman only squints and looks at Fatimah through one glazed eye, as if teetering between laughter and total disregard, as Fatimah reveals the detonator and screams.

  “Allahu Akbar!” Fatimah shrieks.

  The ground-rattling bass thump of the speakers is lost like a gentle whisper amidst the deafening detonation thunderclap of forty pounds of ammonal. The pressure compresses her and the heat sears like fire on her skin. It feels like she’s been crammed into a baby coffin and set aflame atop a funeral pyre. Fragments rake her arms like razor rain. To open her eyes would be to lose them. To scream now is to breathe fire and steel.

  It ends in blackness, as it always does. A blindfold of acrid smoke fills the room, obscuring the broken bodies and leaking blood. The screeching ring left over from the blast makes all the crying and screaming sound miles away. The only sense left is touch, and the crowd uses it liberally to claw and crawl, scurrying over the slow and the dead like a swarm of terrified rats.

  Fatimah emerges from the front doors into the street. Onlookers have already begun to gather. The stupid ones rush inside and the cowardly ones stand and watch. They don’t know her from any of the dozens stumbling from the smothering cloud, choking and clawing at their faces. She wishes she had another bomb for them, but all her explosives were spent.

  Outside, she is exposed. Her shield was shredded in the explosion, as was intended. The burqa was lined with sheets of glued-together ball bearings as shrapnel. The tattered remains of the blue fabric cling to her head and shoulders, where the force of the blast was not as intense. She counts her nine blood-drenched fingers as she hurries away from the scene. The blood is likely her own, from the dozens of scrapes and cuts that crisscross her body, but no more digits were lost this time.

  They will say it is impossible to survive this thing she has lived through. They will say she left the bomb and triggered it from afar. They will say she was completely vaporized in the blast. They may say she does not exist at all. In a way, that is true. There is n
othing left of her—at least not of the person she once was. Now there is only hate. It burns within her, building, expanding, threatening to explode like the suicide vests she has used to kill so many. Soon it will break free and engulf her. She will finally die destroying the person she hates most: the coward who left her this way.

  Fatimah will go to America and she will destroy the Beast. She will destroy Sid Hansen. It is the will of Allah.

  You can read the rest of Godless Murder Machine HERE.

  You can read the rest of Godless Murder Machine HERE.