***
Just north of the Illinois border and south of Marion, Illinois, Joey pulled the rig off the highway and went down an old road that led to an abandoned factory. It was a place he’d discovered years ago and used only a few times. He knew routines were an easy way to get caught; however, it’d been over a year since he had been there, and the probability of any law enforcement agency having anyone on stake-out there was almost zero. This, to him, was the best he could hope for.
The factory hadn’t really changed, except that the undergrowth had spread around the empty parking lot and up against the brick buildings. It seemed additional glass from the industrial windows had been broken since the last time he’d been there. Also, new graffiti graced the walls.
Joey wheeled the rig in behind one of the buildings and slowly drove through the compound to make sure there were no stray cars or trespassers around. He was in luck. The place was completely abandoned. He parked near the side of the main building so he could see the entrance road.
Before he got out of the cab, he retrieved his Smith and Wesson .45 caliber gun, checked the magazine, chambered a round, and tucked the gun into his pants. He then took out his Bowie knife and placed it on his belt. As he got out of the truck he pulled his Taser out of his pocket and checked to make sure it was energized.
The raspy clicking noise was like music to his ears and he smiled. Time to get the show on the road. He walked to the back of the trailer and opened the doors.
***
Rob knew he was in trouble. He didn’t know where he was, but he knew by the way the truck had slowed down and the bumps and ruts had caused him to bounce around the floor of the trailer that they were nowhere near civilization. He tried to maneuver himself near the door. When he felt his feet against the cool solid metal door he wiggled closer to it, until his knees rested firmly against his overextended stomach. He swore to himself that if he survived this mess he was going to go on a diet and lose some weight.
He didn’t have to wait long. Soon he heard the all too familiar sound of the metal hasp being flipped and the heavy steel handle of the door being lifted out of its cradle. Just another few seconds, Rob thought. Just a few more seconds.
His ears filled with the squeal of the metal locking claws of the door handles as they were pried loose from their secure fittings. As the door creaked open, Rob kicked with all two-hundred and seventy pounds of his gluttonous frame. He heard a grunt of surprise as the door bounced into the body opening it. “Fuck you, asshole!” Rob screamed as the heavy door bounced back against his feet, sending dull but searing pain throughout his body. He let out his own cry of pain and kicked the door again.
This time the door swung wide open and light flooded Rob’s eyes, causing him more pain. He knew he didn’t have much time and tried to ignore it as he squirmed his way toward freedom, feet first.
The three-foot drop to the ground was quick and not as painful as he’d expected. Of course he’d landed partially on his captor. He quickly rolled over until he was lying almost completely on top of the young man. Rob’s face was only inches from Joey’s. He noticed something was very wrong with the young man. His nose was askew and looked as if it had been torn away from the rest of the skin, but there was no blood. Also, the boy’s hair was all crooked, as if his entire scalp had been twisted in such a way as to make the skin below it twist like a screw-top beer.
Rob had no time to study the facts. Joey started to groan and move so Rob head-butted him as hard as he could. His forehead crashed into the boy’s fleshy and torn nose. Joey stopped groaning and moving. Rob rolled off of him and looked for something, anything, to help him escape the binds on his wrists and ankles.
He saw a gun handle sticking out of Joey’s pants, and, better yet, a large Bowie knife sitting in its sheath on his hip. Rob quickly maneuvered his way around the unconscious man until his bound hands felt the knife handle. He quickly unsnapped the leather strap holding the blade in place and pulled it free.
“Please, oh please, let this damn thing be sharp,” he said to any and all gods or demons that might be listening.
***
Mike hated working daytime security. Nothing ever happened in the daytime, especially on his route. He’d been assigned the eight-to-six shift because his lieutenant had received several anonymous complaints about Mike abusing his authority. Abuse, hell. All Mike had done was stop some graffiti kids from tagging the abandoned houses and factories. Well, at least that was what the complaint was about. No one said anything about his penchant for sneaking up on young lovers in their cars and watching them fuck, and right before they reached their release point he’d turn on his mag-light and rap loudly on the window.
He always got a kick out of seeing the fear in their faces; it was extremely amusing to watch them try to cover up their private parts in some sense of modesty. Once in a while he would know the kids’ parents and tell them if they wanted him to keep his mouth shut, they’d have to pay him hush money. Which usually amounted to forty or fifty bucks extra in his wallet.
Once, he’d caught the city’s mayor getting a blowjob from one of the well-known hookers in town. They’d been parked behind the high school gymnasium, and he’d been able to extort five hundred bucks from the man. Boy, that had been a great night. ‘Course, at the time, he hadn’t realized by taking the money he’d basically destroyed any chance he’d had at getting hired as a patrol officer. But, since he hadn’t known this fact, he’d just assumed the city was prejudiced against him because his family didn’t belong to the good-ol’-boy network.
So, as he approached his fourth stop of the day – an abandoned fender factory from the 1920s – he was surprised to see the sun glint off of clean glass. He was extremely familiar with this factory. Hell, it was the best spot to catch people fucking, drinking and breaking the frosted glass of the old brick buildings. Not to mention he’d taken a few of his dates out here and told them to either “put out or get out.” They always put out; after all, it was a twelve-mile walk back to town on an unlit abandoned road that hadn’t been paved in years.
“Jackpot,” Mike said aloud as he reached for his car radio. He was about to call in the trespass, but then thought, Maybe it’s some high school kids playing hooky, coming out here to fuck. He put the microphone back on the dashboard clip and slowed down so his car would not kick up too much dust and draw attention to his arrival.
He looked in his rearview mirror. The street behind him was empty, the sun glimmering in the west. He knew there was almost no way for the trespassers to spot him. After all, they had parked on the north side of the main factory, a place that would be shaded soon.
When he entered the main parking lot he turned right. No sense in driving right up on them; he would take the long way to where they were parked. Like a border collie, he thought. His mind was immediately filled with thoughts of his own dog he’d had as a boy.
Fluffy, he’d called her. She was a mixed mutt, part border collie, part German shepherd and part Labrador retriever. Or so his dad had said. He remembered that every time he’d thrown a ball or stick for a game of fetch, Fluffy would watch where the ball was going and then head ninety degrees off from that direction. Fluffy would then run along the nearest obstacle she could find until she’d run almost twice the straight distance any normal dog would have taken, and then she would sprint at full speed and fetch the trophy.
Fluffy did the same action in returning the object, never coming straight at Mike. No, she’d always take the long way. When Mike had asked his dad about this behavior, his father explained to him that border collies’ minds worked in different ways. They didn’t want to be seen. They tried to stay hidden until the last minute so their prey wouldn’t get a sense of their attack. Or so his dad had always said.
His father had gone on to explain that all dogs descended from wolves and different traits were bred into or out of the domesticated animals so they could be used for specific purposes. That information had struck a chord
in young Mike. Over the course of his middle school years and the first half of his high school years, all he’d cared about was reading about dogs and their different traits. Why they acted the way they did and what they were bred for.
He’d even written several reports on different breeds for school and his 4-H club. When he was a junior he got a job working for a vet and learned all about how to handle the different types of animals that came into the office. By his senior year he’d become fascinated with service, military, and police dogs. His dream was to become either a bomb dog handler in the army or K-9 officer in law enforcement.
Those dreams had all gone to hell the night of his graduation. He’d been at a house party with some of his friends when his buddy told him they had a purebred German shepherd that was always barking and was mean to the family.
Mike had remembered how to calm aggressive dogs down. “You have to mount him,” he’d said in front of sixteen of his drunken classmates.
“What do you mean, mount him?” his pal had questioned.
“Simple. Just get behind him, place your hands on the back of his neck, and act as if you are about to fuck him,” Mike had said without thinking.
Fifteen minutes later, with everyone in the party watching, Mike had approached the aggressive dog, which was chained up in the back yard. He tossed the dog some bologna and moved around the dog’s backside. With a swift movement he was behind the shepherd, his hands arounds the dog’s neck. He then thrusted his hips in a mocking gesture as if he were fucking the animal.
It had worked. The dog immediately became docile and stopped growling and snapping. Mike had proven his point.
What Mike hadn’t known was that no less than three of his classmates had recorded the scene on their phones and then quickly uploaded it to the internet.
By the end of the next day no one in town would talk to him aside from calling him ‘dog-fucker.’ And his hopes of joining the military had been quashed. He’d also been fired from his job at the vet’s clinic. Hell, they hadn’t even done it to his face; instead, they’d just called and left a message on his answering machine.
It had taken him almost three years to get hired on to a private security company. Three long and lonely years. He’d sworn to himself he’d never be taken advantage of again. He’d become the ‘alpha-male’ in whatever job he landed. No one was going to make a fool of him again. He’d always get the upper hand on everyone he came into contact with. This had served him well over the years, yet it seemed his tactics had led him into a life of loneliness, a fact he hadn’t quite been able to put together. He’d just thought everyone had hated him for the long-forgotten video, not because he’d become a complete and utter asshole.
He pulled his car up to the side of the building. He tried to avoid the broken glass on the pavement and all the fallen bricks, but he heard the crunch of the material under his tires and hoped the trespassers were too involved with each other to notice the sounds.
He got out of his car, leaving the door open so as not to alert the perpetrators to his presence, and drew his revolver.
“Mike, where are you?” came the sultry voice of the dispatcher over the radio. That was the only thing sultry about Glenda. She was an over-the-hill, overweight, grey-haired woman who ate sweets all day. She’d eaten so much candy over the years that they’d removed all her rotten, blackened teeth and fit her with dentures. Dentures she didn’t like to wear. Most of the time she’d just sit in the dispatch office and suck on tootsie rolls or sugar daddies and talk to him in innuendo.
He reached in the car, grabbed the microphone, and said, “Dispatch, this is Mike, I’m at the abandoned fender factory. I’m going out on foot. One of the doors is open.”
“Okilee dokilee, Mikey,” Glenda said in her best impersonation of Marilyn Monroe.
Mike dropped the microphone, reached in, and turned the radio off. “Can’t have you fucking up my fun,” he whispered into the empty car.
He inched his way across the front of the building, trying to make as little sound as possible. As he got closer to a large tractor trailer, he heard moaning and groaning coming from the rear of the rig. Jackpot, he thought. I’m gonna get a free show and an extra payday out of this.
The cab of the rig was parked just forward of the building and the rest of the rig was parked too close for him to squeeze his body between it and the factory wall. He quickly crossed in front of the cab and made his way down the side of the trailer. When he got to the back of the trailer, the noises of what he believed to be fucking filled the air.
“C’mon… Hurry up… Get it over already… Shit… Ouch. Goddammit…”
Mike took the opportunity to jump out from the side of the trailer with his gun pointed at what he thought was two people fucking. Instead, he was greeted by a naked, hairy, dirty and bleeding man sitting on the ground with his arms behind his back, pumping them up and down feverishly against another man’s groin. As if he were giving the man some sort of backwards hand-job.
“What the…”
The naked man looked up and all color drained from his face. “Thank God, officer! You’re here! Help me! This man has kidnapped me!”
Mike moved his gun from the naked man to the man lying on the ground, then back to the naked man. He’d read about this sort of freaky shit on the internet but he’d never thought he’d see it. “What the hell is going on here? You’re trespassing,” was all he could mutter
“I told you. I’ve been kidnapped. This man is trying to hurt me. I’ve done nothing wrong!” the naked man said as he continued to piston his arms up and down.
“Wha…” was all Mike could get out.
Then, the naked man’s arms were in the air, his right hand wielding a large knife.
Mike fired, the shot went wide, and the air around all the men became filled with smoke and noise.
***
Joey opened his eyes. His ears and face were filled with explosive pain. He looked to his left and saw Rob standing up as some man in a uniform was falling down. Joey’s Bowie knife was buried in the uniformed man’s neck. Blood poured out at an alarming rate. Like when he’d worked on a hog farm and had to slit the squealing throats of mature sows as they hung upside-down by their hind legs. It hadn’t been Joey’s first taste of death, but it was the first time he’d seen the light of life slowly spill out of the eyes of a living creature.
He knew then and there that the cop or security guard was a goner.
He quickly forgot about the man. He had other problems; his target was up and moving. From where Joey lay, he could see Rob still had the tie wraps around his feet but his hands and arms were free to do whatever damage they could. Proof of that was slowly bleeding out not ten feet from them.
Joey looked around and saw his Taser lying on the ground a few feet from him, but he knew if he tried to get it he would be heard. So he lay there and played possum. When he saw Rob start to turn around he closed his eyes and didn’t move. When he heard Rob move, he opened them again.
He saw Rob trying to hop his way toward the dead man. He waited, and watched as Rob bent his knees and began another lame attempt at a hop forward. Joey flipped over. When Rob tried to jump again, Joey lunged for the Taser.
Rob heard him the second time and turned toward him.
Joey saw fear in Rob’s eyes and hoped his own eyes didn’t betray him.
Rob lunged for the dead man’s neck as Joey felt the familiar coolness of the Taser in his left hand. He leapt to his feet and charged his target. The air was filled with burnt ozone and the sound of electrical clicking.
Joey stood over Rob’s unconscious body. The man’s hairy belly was still quivering like a bowl of Jell-O in the early afternoon sun. “Fucker,” he said and kicked the man in his side. “Try that shit again and you won’t make it to your final destination.”
Joey then flipped the dead man over and noticed a private security patch on his arm. “Good, ain’t no one gonna miss you for a while,” he said. He found the ma
n’s handcuffs and quickly secured Rob’s wrists behind his back. “Fucker. You’re almost too damn heavy to get back into the cab.”
Twenty sweaty minutes later, Joey found the car the security officer had driven and drove around to where the dead man was slowly drying out in the sun. He hoisted the dead meat into the trunk of the car and drove around to the loading docks. When he found a loose door, he opened it and parked the car inside.
Hopefully, I will be long gone before anyone misses the guard, he thought. Then he walked back to the tractor trailer and checked on his target, who was now passed out, handcuffed, and zip-tied in the rig’s sleeper. Joey had also used an old pair of underwear and some duct tape to seal the man’s mouth shut.
He got into the driver’s seat, started the rig up and headed north for Chicago.
“Maybe this job ain’t so fucking easy,” he said as he tried to find a rock and roll station on the radio.
***
The sun was setting as he pulled into the warehouse district. Joey steered slowly and carefully through the maze of shipping containers and industrial equipment. He was headed toward a familiar place where he’d gotten rid of more stolen goods than a dozen large discount box stores had in their inventory at any given time. As he rounded the corner of a warehouse with a large gantry crane parked between it and the water, he saw that his underground connection had followed through with their promise.
There were half a dozen new, black GMC SUVs parked next to the edge of the pier. Next to the warehouse, Warehouse 68, he saw a large Cadillac limousine and, behind it, two black Mercedes Benzes. Joey shook his head. He’d never known Nails to have anything but American cars in his fleet of vehicles. Hell, the man even refused to have anything to do with the expensive Italian super-cars that were all the rage with his cousins in New York. “Well, maybe times are changing,” he said to no one.
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