Joe Fury and the Hard Death

by Paul Anthony Long

  Justice pours a round of clarets for everyone and then raises his glass in a toast.

  ‘To the end of Kieran.’ He knocks back the claret and everyone joins in. Justice slams the glass down.

  ‘For too long we have lived under this man’s tyranny,’ he begins. ‘For too long we have suffered under the chains he binds us with. We are used and abused as his playthings and projects and when we’ve fulfilled our brief we’re cast aside into the desert to fend for ourselves. But, I say, “no longer.” No longer should we have to be subject to his twisted schemes, for we are chickens, and we shall rise up against our oppressor, and we shall cast him out of the temple he has built for himself and lead our brothers into a new dawn of peace and plenty!’

  The chickens around the table roar with pride and raise their glasses for another toast. Glasses clink, chickens cluck, but I lean back and spark a stoogie and wait for the self congratulation to take a holiday.

  ‘Pretty words, Justice,’ I say. ‘But there’s a big distance between words and deeds. How do you plan to stick it to the man? With this?’ I cast a plateful of chicken feed across the table.

  ‘No, my friend.’ Justice leans forward and points a wing at me. ‘With you.’

  ‘What gives you the big idea I’d help a down-on-his-luck chicken with a grudge?’

  ‘Because I see the fire in your eyes,’ says Justice, leaning towards me. ‘I see the passion within you to do the right thing. I see the revolutionary zeal in your spirit, and it fills my heart with burning pride.’

  ‘I see a lot of hot air.’ I blow a puff of smoke in his face and he coughs and sits back.

  Justice contemplates for a second. ‘Okay, see it like this. When you bust through the main doors we can be there as a distraction. The more heat we take off you the easier it’ll be to land a hand on Kieran. We’re both winners.’

  ‘I like your style, Cogburn.’ I jab the cigar at him. ‘Keep a feather out for us and make sure you’re there when we hit the compound. Any clues you can give us about it.’

  ‘Just watch your ass, Mr Fury,’ says Justice. ‘Whatever tricks you think you’ve got up your sleeve, Kieran’s already thought of them.’ He leans forward once more. ‘One more thing. Watch out for the samurai.’

  THIRTY FIVE

  Justice and his ninja chickens see us off with a fond farewell as we tail off in the shark, and soon we’re back on the road and tearing down the strip.

  ‘We can trust ’em,’ says Sue. ‘A chicken with a grudge is nothing to laugh at.’

  ‘What’s your connection to Kieran, sister?’ I spare her a glance. ‘And what have the nuns got to do with it?’

  Sue gives me a long, studied stare and then fesses up. ‘I knew him a long time ago. We were close. Then things went wrong and he couldn’t stand to be rejected. So he carted me away to the Sisters of the Immaculate Immolation and that’s where I’ve been for the last ten years.’

  ‘So why are they after you?’

  ‘They have a “no get out” clause. If you leave, you die.’ Sue stares out at the passing scenery and sighs. ‘That’s why Kieran put me in there. He couldn’t bring himself to kill me, and he figured I’d make a break for it the first opportunity I got, so he could live safe in the knowledge that the nuns would pop a cap in my rear loader and he wouldn’t be directly responsible for me pushing up the daisies.’

  ‘Sweet story, sister,’ I grumble. ‘But you’re not telling me an ounce of the truth.’

  She looks back. She knows I can tell she’s lying. ‘It’s a long story,’ she says.

  ‘It’s a long road.’

  She looks at me hard and I know the sister’s been through a rough time. But I’ve heard a thousand sob stories.

  ‘It started when the earth tore in two—’ she mutters, and then stops as the ground shakes.

  ‘If it’s the robot again I’m gonna plug it,’ I say, whipping out the popgun and glancing behind us. But it’s not coming from behind. A roar breaks through the growl of the shark’s engine and suddenly a triceratops comes sliding into our path, three horns aiming right for the grille.

  THIRTY SIX

  I slam on the brakes and the shark screams to a halt, leaving a trail of tyre tracks in our wake. Sue pops off a few rounds with the Uzi, but they bounce off the triceratops’s carapace. It shakes its head and looks pissed off, then charges right for us.

  ‘Hang on.’ I hit reverse and the shark bites the tarmac and screams back the way we came, but this prehistoric monster is fast. Too fast.

  The lead horn hits the bumper and the dinosaur flips its head, and we’re spinning like a bottle off the road and into the dirt. I’m up and out and Sue’s already in front of me, tearing over the landscape as the thunderous roar of the creature looms up behind us.

  But they’re not taking me without a fight. I skid to a stop and spin, hefting the cannon up and aiming down the barrel as the beast rages towards us.

  ‘Suck on the stone age!’ I mutter, and blast off a shot that slams straight into the eye. The triceratops screeches to a bloody halt and shakes its head, and I’m starting to wonder if the Poindexters are wrong and their brains are in their ass.

  ‘Keep it real, Joe,’ screams Sue, and she lays a blast of white hot lead over the face of the massive beast. It roars and bucks and bleeds, then starts to look angry.

  ‘Hang tight, sister.’ I grab her around the waist. ‘This could be a road trip we’ll never forget.’

  And then the ground below the beast buckles and splits, and a hand slams out from under the dinosaur and straight into its guts. A second later it yanks out the beasts entrails as another fist punches up and into the animal.

  A body emerges from under the creature and heaves the thing as it wails and cries, then picks it up and topples it over onto its side. The figure stands up.

  It’s Sun Tzu.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  ‘Nice party trick, Tzu,’ I tell the figure. ‘You back for another game show or here for the sushi?’

  Tzu steps forward and lends us a cordial bow. I follow, along with Sue.

  ‘To what do we owe this pleasure?’ I ask, sparking up a Havana. ‘You’re a little off your limits.’

  ‘The game show was just a formality,’ says Tzu. ‘You must forgive me for that little sideshow. I was being spiritually held hostage by the old man, and now you have freed me.’

  ‘Thanks, but I didn’t free you.’ I tap ash into the blasted eye socket of the fallen dinosaur. ‘The old man died in a firefight. Now cough up the beans, wiseguy, or your jawbone takes a holiday it never forgets.’

  ‘It is no coincidence that you are here,’ says Tzu. ‘The formalities of your existence have led you to this point in your life where you can now take part in your greatest challenge.’

  ‘Nice speech, but I’m on a case.’ I jab the stoogie at him. ‘Make with the details.’

  ‘We are here as combatants in the greatest battle of the century between man and beast,’ says Tzu, looking honoured. ‘We have been chosen from the finest combat artists in the world to compete in a tournament. A tournament of death.’

  ‘The chicken was right,’ I growl. ‘We were warned about you.’

  ‘The chicken?’ Sun Tzu spits. ‘The chicken is foul.’

  ‘Cut the stand-up,’ I tell him. ‘If you get in our way we’ll cut you down. Now take a hike and don’t bother us again.’

  ‘If we beat our enemies I will join you on your quest,’ says Tzu. ‘It would be an honour to fight beside such a legend.’

  ‘You got your wires crossed, Mac.’ I start towards the shark. ‘I’m nothing but a shoestring. Have a nice life.’

  But before I get anywhere near the car the ground starts to rumble again. This isn’t good. I turn to Tzu and he looks pleased, which also isn’t good.

  There’s a dust cloud in the distance, a low thunder filling the air. Sue snaps another clip into the Uzi and cocks the hammer.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’ I’m off towards the s
hark and she’s behind me, but the dust cloud gets bigger and the thunder gets louder and suddenly we’re surrounded by dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes.

  THIRTY EIGHT

  Sun Tzu sits astride a tyrannosaurus and waves a wakizashi sword in the air.

  ‘Come join us, honourable one,’ he yells over the roars and screams of the dinosaur army. ‘It is the only way out of here.’

  ‘Why, of all the luck,’ I mutter.

  An army grunt on a stegosaurus comes towards us, with the reins of a megalosaurus in one hand and an M60 in the other. The megalosaurus rears up on its hind legs, roars, and raps its sharp thumbs together. It’s big, mean and ugly.

  ‘I thought these didn’t exist,’ I say to the grunt as he hands me the reins. He laughs.

  ‘Everything exists in this fight,’ he says. He kicks the side of the steg and they canter off into the crowd of monsters.

  ‘We’d better see this one through,’ I tell the dame, and I’m up on the dinosaur, with her holding tight behind me. We make our way to the front of what seems to be an endless line of prehistoric creatures.

  Across an empty expanse of desert we see another, equally long, line of dinosaurs.

  ‘Any tactics?’ asks Sue.

  I nod. ‘Keep firing and look for an exit.’

  Sun Tzu rides along our line of creatures, his sword held high.

  ‘We fight for a victory that doesn’t exist!’ he yells. ‘We fight for a worthless piece of desert. We fight for our lives and our deaths, and we fight for the honour of battle. For anything else would be a lie, and anything else would be an excuse. We fight because we have to, and we will fight until we die. Let me make this clear, we are doing this for no reason whatsoever, and these pitiful words mean nothing at all, and in the end it’s all completely worthless!’

  The crowd roars.

  ‘I wonder how many miles this thing does to the gallon,’ I mutter, checking out the meg. Tzu turns to face the enemy in front of us.

  ‘To glory!’ he screams, kick starting the rex, and we’re streaming off in a cloud of sweat, roars and thunderous noise towards a certain death.

  THIRTY NINE

  My meg gets a good lick in to something big and slimy with too many teeth. It tears a chunk out of the creature and I pop a cap in its eye and it goes down, squealing and spitting blood.

  Sue turns the Uzi on another monster behind us as it rears up, with hate in its eyes and blood on its fangs. She takes out its knees, and as it stumbles forwards I haul the meg out of the way. The creature crashes to the ground and spills its rider.

  I wrench the reins to the right and come face to face with a steg carrying a Viking who’s toting a rocket launcher.

  ‘Duck!’ I scream as the launcher belches fire. The rocket flies right over our heads and explodes against something mean and nasty, and suddenly we’re off the meg and on the floor.

  Nothing but feet and screams around us. I spin and fire a few rounds off, taking out some riders, then turn to face the biggest, meanest, ugliest looking dinosaur I’ve ever set eyes on. And it’s cased head to neck in battle armour.

  The creature bends low, bares a universe of razor sharp teeth and lets out a roar right into my face. I slam my fist into its jaw and send it reeling to the floor, out cold.

  ‘Stay!’ I tell it, then haul the meg back on to its feet and suddenly we’re up again and trying to find a way through this mess.

  Blood flies everywhere and we spin and fire. The meg gets a few good licks in with its horned thumbs and razor teeth, and soon enough there’s space around us. And beyond the space, chaos.

  Sun Tzu comes riding up covered in blood with his eyes on fire. ‘This is the greatest honour,’ he screams, then he’s off, hacking and slashing and making sure the enemy stay down.

  ‘We’ve gotta get out of here,’ yells Sue, and I look for an exit, but there isn’t one.

  ‘We’ll have to fight our way out.’ And I aim the popgun at the nearest beast and take out the rider. The creature screams and roars and, without any guidance, starts taking chunks out of everything around it.

  I turn to see a diplodocus coming straight for us; and one thing’s for sure, this creature wasn’t a weed eater. It’s got corpses in its mouth and more teeth than a gameshow host.

  Sue sparks off a line of fire while I kick the meg into action. The dip swings its massive head for us and clamps down hard on the meg’s haunches, bringing it down.

  Sue rolls, leaps up and jams the Uzi right against the dip’s skull, blasting round after round into its head, and tearing its flesh into a memory. The huge creature manages a wounded roar before keeling over and crushing flat a Pashtun warrior who’s aiming an old bolt action rifle at us. Sue kicks the corpse for good luck.

  ‘Nice shooting, toots.’ I reload and look for a sign to lead us out of this insanity.

  ‘Any suggestions?’ She snaps another clip into the Uzi and chambers a round.

  ‘Start praying,’ and we both aim in the same direction and start to carve ourselves a path.

  And there, through the carnage, I spot the battered wreck of the shark. It looks a mess, but it’s something to aim for.

  ‘This way.’ Sue follows my lead and we start to blast a way through the prehistoric mayhem. Kneecaps explode and riders go down and we dodge and duck and weave our way through the teeth and claws and swords and guns. It’s a miracle, but we make it through the melee in one piece. The car looks like last year’s scrap heap.

  ‘That’s going to need some fixing up,’ says Sue.

  ‘Give me a monkey wrench and some time and we’ll see what we can do.’

  Then Sue gets zapped by a blue light and the next second we’re on the deck of a spaceship, staring down the wrong end of a laser blaster wielded by a three-headed alien.

  FORTY

  I check my pockets. No matches.

  ‘Anyone got a light?’ I hold up the cigar. The laser speaks and the tip glows red. ‘Thanks.’ I take a puff and give the aliens the once over. Two of them. Three heads. Four arms. Skinny as rakes. ‘What do you jokers want?’

  ‘Are you the one they call “Kieran”?’ says Alien No. 1.

  ‘What’s the beef?’ I ask.

  Alien No. 2 holds up a mangled piece of technology with wires hanging off it, bleeping weakly. ‘He sold us this dodgy piece of equipment. We want his testicles in a jar.’

  ‘You got the wrong schmo,’ I tell them. ‘I’m looking for him myself. Any clues?’

  Alien No. 1 clips Alien No. 2 around the back of the middle head. ‘I told you he was the wrong puny earthling scum,’ it says. ‘Why can you never get the co-ordinates right?’

  ‘Can’t you beam down there and give him a piece of your wisdom, ET?’ I saunter across and scan the flight deck of whatever I’m in. Cut price alien technology. Straight out of Roswell and not half as advanced. ‘Where the hell did you jokers come from?’

  ‘The Nebula Cortex,’ says Alien No. 1. ‘But our generator packed up many of your earth years ago and now we have been forced to seek out the help of you pitiful earthling creatures for our spare parts. Our ancestors mock us every Terran night from their astro-beds and we live in shame.’

  ‘Cut the chatter,’ I snap, taking control. ‘Got any whisky?’

  ‘Ah,’ nods Alien No. 1. ‘Shouting fluid. Yes, we have a few baubles of it. It helps power our spaceship.’

  And with that Alien No. 1 pops out a bottle of cheap whisky and pours me a splash. I knock it back, slam it down, and contemplate a way out of this.

  ‘Okay, Gort,’ I say. ‘You need parts, and we need out of here. I’ll cut you a deal. How good are you at repairs?’

  ‘The very best,’ nods Alien No. 2.

  ‘You fix up the shark and we’ll talk about getting your generator back on line. I know a guy down the road who knows a thing or two about particle generators and alien technology.’

  Alien No. 1 looks disapprovingly at me. ‘You are the alien to us, earth man.’

&n
bsp; ‘Shut up.’

  It shuts up.

  FORTY ONE

  The aliens whip up a storm in their repairs bay and before you know it the shark’s back up and running like it’s straight off the production line. I take a few more pops of whisky and we’re beamed down to the road, just outside The Shack.

  It’s a rickety, falling down building which looks like it was stacked together out of driftwood. I push open the door and inside it’s a mess of wires and mechanical parts and bits and pieces thrown all over the place.

  ‘Ginger!’ I shout, and a head pops out from behind a stack of spare parts. Ginger gives us the once over and then walks out.

  ‘Cor blimey, strike a light, me old china,’ he mutters, and shoves out a grease stained hand to greet us. ‘What’s the apple and Barry.’

  ‘We’ve got a problem, Ginger,’ I tell him, nodding to the aliens. Ginger doesn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Engine repairs.’

  ‘Right, me old squirrel and saucer,’ he nods. ‘Spaceship. Fifty to the tonne. Nice little speeder, I’ve heard.’

  ‘Greetings, strange talking cockney.’ Alien No. 1 steps forward. ‘We must hurry before the Klaxons of Narg infiltrate our system.’

  ‘Hold yer horses, me nutkin pie.’ Ginger holds up a warning hand. ‘We’ve got plenty of time for the greaser’s palm. Give us a nod and scratch down Strawberry Lane and we’ll see about the China’s roller skates.’

  ‘What can you offer him as a barter?’ I translate for the aliens.

  ‘We have this.’ Alien No. 1 pulls out a bright shining orb which fills the dank, dusty interior of the shack. Ginger spares it a disparaging glance.

  ‘Got fifty of them,’ he says, nodding to a stack of glowing orbs at the back. ‘Anyfing else?’

  The aliens swap worried glances.