by Tristan Vick
“Ah, I see.”
“I went years without one.”
“You did, did you?”
“Lacking a sense of humor, I had to compensate with dashing good looks.” John grinned as he lifted his fedora and ran his fingers through his starchy hair.
John fancied himself a hard-boiled detective, like Black Mask or Dick Tracy, and dressed to look the part. Along with the fedora, he wore a long, charcoal-gray trench coat and black leather gloves that helped conceal his strange nature while giving him that trademark Holmesian inscrutability.
Julie laughed. “So if you don’t mind my asking, how did you develop your keen sense of humor?”
John pushed the brim of his hat up with his thumb and leaned forward as if he had something vitally important to share. “Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“Uh-huh,” Julie replied with slight disappointment. She had hoped to keep the friendly banter going.
“I’d really hate to have to kill you, you know? After all, you were just beginning to grow on me.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t pry any further. I’m pretty fond of living. You can keep your little secret.”
“Speaking of secrets, what did the famous Kateland Rameses Beckensale want? It looked important.”
“Nah, not really. She found enlightenment or some kind of shit. I dunno, I wasn’t really listening.” Julie motioned for John to take a seat across from her.
A different waitress, with stunning red hair and an inside out French fishtail braid, came over to top off Julie’s coffee, and looked at John inquisitively. He waved her off with a charming smile, then put his hat on the table. His mind still fixating on Beckensale, he said, “She’s looking as—”
“Top-heavy as ever?” Julie interjected.
“Actually, I was going to say slussy.”
“Slussy?” inquired Julie with an inquisitive look.
“Yeah, you know? Classy, but also kind of slutty. Slussy.”
“Well, she is that,” Julie acknowledged. “Did you just make that up off the top of your head?”
“Yeah, well, it sounded better than clutty.”
“Oh, most definitely,” Julie agreed. “Clutty doesn’t sound sexy at all. Sounds more like a hot mess, if you ask me.” Her gaze shifted back to her coffee cup, which she cradled in her hands, and once again became lost in thought. Looking back up, Julie asked, “Have I ever told you about the Zen of brewing coffee?”
“I didn’t even know there was such a thing,” answered John.
Looking up at him, she smiled. “Well, there is, my friend. And I’m looking for the one. The perfect cup.” Julie slowly raised the coffee toward her lips, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. The scent of roasted beans flooded her head and caused her to smile with the realization that the wait would soon be over.
“Do you think you’ll ever find it?”
Pausing, Julie opened her fetching green eyes and looked back up at her partner. “There’s only one way to find out,” she replied and slowly brought her cup to her lips. Just as hot coffee dampened her soft upper lip, her cup exploded in her hands like a dropped egg. “Mother loving lick-nuts!” Julie cursed as scalding coffee splashed across her chest.
White shards of the ceramic coffee mug glided through the air like jagged leaves falling in cinematic slow-motion as Julie slid out of the booth and got down on the ground when a sudden stream of consecutive bursts pierced the front row of windows, fracturing the glass into a thousand lines and then violently shattering all around. The crinkling sound of broken glass mingled with the terrified screams of frantic customers.
2
CAFÉ CRUNCH
Using her forearm to shield her eyes from the spattering glass raining down on her, everything around her seemed to slow down even as her heart raced inside her chest at what seemed to be a million beats per second. Julie forced herself to stand and made her sluggish body move, even though it seemed to want to resist. Bullets whizzed by her head as she ran toward the counter. Cups and dishes exploded all around, and the lingering debris was thick with the haze of sheetrock and white dust.
With precise timing, Julie leapt up and tackled the blonde waitress returning with Beck’s belated coffee, and who was apparently oblivious to the surrounding chaos.
The two of them catapulted up and over the top of the counter and slid safely behind it. Julie waved toward a group of patrons huddled just meters away, pinned down by the crossfire. She motioned for them to head through the kitchen and out the back, and without a second’s hesitation, they quickly obeyed—except for the waitress, who continued to sit casually next to Julie as bullets ricocheted against the walls.
Looking over at the waitress with a confounded look that said, “What the hell are you waiting for?” Julie couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled by the waitress’s sedate demeanor. “Are you okay?”
“Are we in a movie?”
“Pardon?” Julie asked, completely taken aback by the question. “No,” Julie replied. “We’re in the middle of a fucking shit-storm, that’s where we’re at.”
The waitress’s eyes grew big with fear as the realization sunk in a few moments too late. “You mean this is for real?”
“I’ll tell you this much. This ain’t any dream, sweetheart.”
“It’s so depressing,” the waitress said with a long, drawn-out sigh, the kind of casual release of regret that didn’t quite fit within the surrounding chaos.
Julie raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, it’s a bummer alright.”
“The whole world is broken,” the waitress continued. “Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t we just love one another?”
“Good question,” Julie agreed as she checked the clip of her Sig Sauer handgun. Before the waitress could ask any other questions about the unbalance she sensed in the universe, her co-worker, fishtail braids, came back for her. Taking the blonde’s hand, the girl with striking red hair said, “Come on!”
Julie quickly shoved them toward the back kitchen. “Now go! Get out of here. Both of you!”
Throughout the entire first volley of bullet-mulching mayhem, John had remained seated in the booth, calmly looking out the window as bullets pelted into him. Shards of shattered glass tinkled all around when, suddenly, a lone bullet swiftly flew through the temple of his forehead.
The bullet passed clean through, in one end and out the other. John’s eyes grew as wide as a deer’s caught in the headlights of oncoming traffic, and it dawned on him that he’d just been shot. His face froze in time—the effects of the bullet not yet taking their full toll—then after a long pause, he blinked. “I’m getting shot up something fierce!”
“No shit, Sherlock!” Julie quipped as she pulled out a second semi-automatic Sig Sauer from her leather jacket. Julie leapt up and laid down a barrage of cover fire with her dual guns and then ducked back down behind the counter. She called out to her partner, “Instead of just sitting there filling up with lead, try making yourself useful. Can you make them out?”
Unfazed by the whole ordeal, John reached up and picked out a strand of loose straw jutting out from his head wound and then flicked it away. “They look like your standard paramilitary mercenaries to me.”
With the diner wall looking like Swiss cheese, John pushed the table over for added cover and leaned up against it. Sitting with his back to the table, he noticed bullets piercing his body as they tore through his torso with a padded-sounding fwaft fwaft fwaft.
John Scarecrow, being a bona fide scarecrow and all, didn’t seem to be too affected by the newly-inflicted wounds. Reaching into the inside breast pocket of his jacket, John pulled out a small needle kit and, with steady hands, stitched up his head wound. What’s just one more stitch to the many that already held my burlap-like face together, he contemplated.
“How are you doing over there?” Julie shouted from behind the counter.
“It’s the jacket I’m worried about,” John replied with a hint of r
emorse on his voice as he tucked his needle kit back into his inside pocket. John pushed a finger through one of his newly-fashioned holes and wiggled it around. Frayed straw jutted out of his gunshot wounds, giving him a battered and worn appearance. “I just bought this jacket,” he lamented.
Julie popped back up for another round of cover fire. “Don’t pick at it,” she cried, “that will only make it worse!” Julie emptied the rest of the rounds from her clip then ducked back down, slipped the clip out, and slapped in a new one.
The gunfire momentarily ceased as the six black suits standing in the street in front of the black line of Mercedes took their sweet time reloading. Without the racket of fully-automatic gunfire, an eerie silence settled onto the scene. But the prevailing calm was cut short by an earsplitting interruption.
A loud, hissing pop followed by a hectic spray of sparks shooting everywhere signified the end of the “Danny’s Donuts” sign. Teetering on its broken limb, the sign twisted and then toppled down onto the diner’s roof with a thunderous crash. Loud pops could be heard as the neon bulbs burst, and a spray of sparks and glass peppered everything within proximity, adding to the surrounding smoke and debris.
3
MACHINIST MAYHEM
After the dust had settled, the group of mercenaries held their fire, waiting for any movement. Turning toward his men, the squad leader said, “Get me confirmation of the kill.”
A second mercenary spoke up. “I don’t see how anyone could have survived that.” But just as quickly as he finished his sentence, his head flew back as a bullet pierced his cranium. He let out a rather ignominious-sounding “Gnaw!” and his body fell to the ground with a thud.
Raising their guns, the mercenaries released another volley of fire, their weapons firing with a staccato budda batta budda batta.
The chime of spent gun shells tinkled on the pavement as bullets whisked through the air with a spiraling vengeance. The roar of guns blazing drowned out the white noise of the destruction as the second volley chewed up what remained of the diner.
Dark figures with sub-machine guns encroached upon the tattered remains of the diner with cautious steps. Motioning with the smoking muzzle of his gun, the squad leader pointed at the dead body lying at their feet. “Let’s not get cocky. We best not take any more chances.” Then, using hand gestures, he signaled the other mercenaries to close in on Julie Kingston’s location and confirm the kill.
Amid the lingering gray haze lurked a shadowy figure that managed to completely avoid the mercenaries’ detection. It moved swiftly against the background of settling dust and smoke. As a slight breeze passed by one of the soldiers, he paused and turned around to look in the direction of whatever it was that had suddenly darted by, but didn’t detect anything.
Letting out a nervous sigh, the mercenary turned back around and tried to put it out of his mind. Just then, from the dark and dusty backdrop, appeared the shadowy figure of a threadbare scarecrow. Gloved hands reached out of the haze and grabbed the unsuspecting merc from behind, muzzling him so his screams could not be heard. Both figures quickly disappeared from sight.
The faint sound of a garbled mumble attracted the other soldiers’ attention, and heads snapped in the direction of the noise. To their dismay, they only saw a vacant spot in the smoky miasma where their comrade used to be.
“What the hell is going on here?” a fidgety mercenary demanded to know. “We’re like sitting flies out here.”
“Calm down,” the squad leader barked. “The more you chatter, the more likely you are to give away your position.”
“That’s very true,” a mysterious voice concurred. The mercenaries all turned toward the direction of the voice and raised their weapons.
Scarecrow stepped out of the haze and came out in the open, making himself as plain as day. Unable to believe their eyes, the mercenaries blinked several times and then blinked several more just to be sure they weren’t losing their minds.
“It’s … it’s … a freakin’ scarecrow, man.”
“No, just a regular scarecrow,” John replied.
“What?”
“Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise,” Scarecrow informed them.
However, the statement only exasperated the mercenaries even further. They looked utterly confounded as they tried to guess his meaning.
Turning toward his commander, one of the less talkative grunts chimed in, “Maybe if we could write it down on paper we could figure out its meaning?”
“Shaddup!” snapped his commander.
“Oh, are we doing quotes today?” Julie’s voice blurted out from behind what was left of the diner wall. Julie stood up, wielding her dual Sig Sauer handguns. Giving her best Clint Eastwood impression, Julie said, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if I have what it takes. Well, you have to ask yourselves just one thing … do I feel lucky?”
Half of the remaining men aimed their weapons directly at Julie, while the other three maintained a fixed lock on the scarecrow. Julie matched their change and took aim at them in return. She stared menacingly down the barrel of her guns, and asked, “Well, do you … punks?”
“You’re outnumbered six to two,” the squad leader informed her. “I suggest you surrender yourselves now.”
“Over my dead body,” Julie replied.
“That can easily be arranged.”
Wagging his gloved finger at the leader, Scarecrow scolded him. “Hey there, that’s no way to talk to a lady.”
Looking coldly over at John, the squad leader said, “I don’t know what sort of creature you are, but before this day is done, we’ll take care of you too.”
Julie signaled John with a nod of her chin. Scarecrow turned toward the nearest mercenary and slowly walked toward him.
“Hey buddy, stay where you are.”
Scarecrow ignored the merc’s warnings and walked straight up to the barrel of his gun. Pressing his chest into the muzzle, Scarecrow looked into the eyes of the mercenary, testing his resolve. Suddenly a gunshot rang out, and Scarecrow looked down at his still-smoking chest hole; he then slowly looked back up at the mercenary with a menacing glare. After a brief, stone-cold stare, Scarecrow said, “Boo.”
Dropping his gun, the mercenary turned tail and ran away while the squad leader shouted after him, “Coward!”
Scarecrow turned toward the other mercenaries with a posture that said he was coming after them next. This time, they did not hesitate to pull their triggers, and soon a barrage of bullets pelted Scarecrow with a hungry fury.
Using what was left of the diner wall as cover, Julie dropped to the ground and rolled behind the chewed-up cinderblock slab as chunks of wood and drywall exploded around her head. A white, chalky dust clung to her clothes and hair. As a steady stream of bullets drilled into the concrete cinderblocks just behind her head, Julie slammed in a couple of fresh clips, tilted her guns sideways gangster style, and reached around the corner to return fire.
Her final shot managed to hit the squad leader in the shoulder. Although the bullet passed straight through, he looked mighty pissed. With a snarl, he said, “The only words I want to hear from you, lady, are ‘I surrender.’ Do you get me?”
From behind her shrinking wall, Julie yelled back, “Why don’t you crawl up your own ass and die, dick-weed?”
Her reply sent the squad leader into a rage, and he emptied his machinegun into the wall, dropped it to the ground when it was of no further use, and quickly pulled a Glock 19 from his back waistline. With hammer pounding brass, he marched forward, determined to erase his mark. When he ran out of bullets, he released the clip and in one fluid motion fetched a new one from his ammunition belt and slipped it in, continuing to fire until he was but a few yards away from Julie’s position.
At the same time, John ignored the bullets pelting him left and right and op
ened the chamber of his revolver to empty out the spent shells. He then placed new bullets in one at a time. The ruse worked, and some of the mercs began trying to saw him down with a chain of gunfire.
Snorting as if he was hacking up a hairball stuck in the back of his throat, John spat out a wet clot of mucus-coated shells onto the ground with a resounding splat. He affirmed his victory with a grin as the barrage of gunfire ceased, while dismayed mercenaries simply gazed down at the bullet shells encased in the gelatinous goo lying on the ground.
“You have got to be kidding me,” one of the mercenaries said as a look of disgust crawled onto his face.
John finished reloading his Magnum, then slowly turned and raised his gun. The mercs looked up at him in time to realize it was already too late. The Magnum’s blasts were deafening. The powerful force of the bullets impacting their body armor caused the remaining mercenaries to rise off the ground from the brute force of each shot. Their flailing bodies looked like dolls flung into the air, and each one came crashing down into the rigid asphalt mere seconds later.
Finally, safe from any further threat of harm, Julie stepped out from behind the wall, trained her gun on the only man left standing, and fired two quick rounds into his upper thighs, dropping him in an instant.
Immobilized and writhing on the ground, the squad leader clutched his wounded arm and looked up to see John Scarecrow walking toward him. “Who … who are you, man?”
Scarecrow kicked the squad leader’s gun away with his foot. The firearm skidded across the blacktop with an uneasy scraping noise until it was safely out of reach. John pulled out a pair of handcuffs and reached down to slap them on. As he cuffed the felled criminal, he said in an ominous voice, “The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.”
4
INTERROGATION
Having lined up the criminals face-down on the pavement with their hands securely tied behind their backs, Julie began reading them their Miranda rights, but with her own slight paraphrase.