Twisted City (4 page)

Mongoose
has been watching the group pilfering for the past hour and is now waiting for
the opportune moment. He has a keen eye and quick instinct when it comes to
survival and he knows that the food the four men and one woman recently acquired
will feed him and Max for a good long while. He’s already concluded that this
ugly looking bunch can’t be anything but Maddick’s and he despises Maddick’s.
Doing your best to survive is one thing but hunting others just for the sheer
fun of it is entirely something else and he’s seen plenty of them do just that.
He tries to steer clear of these brutes but right now he and Max are hungry and
the canned goods they are hauling look too tempting to pass up. He won’t be
able to take it quietly and unnoticed either. A short pudgy man is in the
lead,
his black beady eyes are everywhere and watching
everything as he walks on. The woman behind him, frizzy haired and snarl faced
as if she’s got
dookie
on her top lip, keeps her eyes
forward or to the ground. A black man with long dreads with all kinds of filth
embedded into the dreads follows her, and behind the black man is a bald headed
man covered in tattoos pushing the shopping cart full of canned goods. And the
bull of the bunch, carrying a caveman club over his shoulder, takes up the
rear.

Nope,
he definitely won’t be able to take it quietly and unnoticed. No matter, he
ain’t
known as Mongoose for nothing.

Mongoose
is seventeen years old and has been on his own ever since the death of the
civilized world. If truth be told he’s been on his own long before that. His
mother had been a whore, a dope whore, and he’s the result of an episode of
that whoredom. Growing up she never showed him much love, an occasional very
inexpensive gift or the briefest of hugs was the extent of her affection for
him and those were only issued out on holidays and birthdays.
If she remembered.
She started doing hard drugs when he was
eight years old and any affection he once received from her soon vanished not
long after. And then things started to go south really fast. The only meal he
could count on was school lunch. The
cabinets at home were
always empty and rarely ever was
there anything in the fridge and
eventually the fridge itself disappeared, a good refrigerator equals a good
bump. If he got hungry he fended for himself. When he outgrew his clothes he
got himself new ones. It didn’t take long for Mongoose to learn the art of
thievery in order for him to get what he needed and wanted. He quit going to
school altogether, what’s the point when the only reason he kept going in the
first place was to get that one meal anyway and that lost its appeal once his
extracurricular activities became lucrative. He stayed on the streets all day,
every day, stealing and hustling all the while ducking and dodging the local
fuzz. The only time he came home was to crash, if he was unable to crash out
somewhere else. His mother never questioned him about his
whereabouts
 and
he never bothered her and her tricks as they came and went. He
brought food home for his mother, knowing she wouldn’t bother to get herself
any, and although she often asked him for money he would never give her any,
knowing what she would do with it. They never had to worry about the rent; she
was nice to the landlord so the landlord was nice to her.

And
then the world started to crumble and along with it came The New Disease. It
spread like wildfire. It wasn’t long until his mother got infected, and with
what the ravishing effect of the drugs had already done to her mind and body,
it took no time for the disease to kill her. During the time it took her to die
he never once cried and when it was over he wrapped her body in sheets and kept
her in her bedroom, where she’d taken countless men before, with the door
closed and sealed off with duct tape to keep the putrid smell trapped in. He
stayed locked inside that small apartment with his mother’s decomposing body in
the other room as the city outside tore itself apart. When he felt it was safe
to come out he took his mother’s stiff and shrunken corpse to the building
garbage shoot and shoved her through and for the first time in a long while he
stepped back out into the city.

Surviving
now not only means to simply steal but it also means having to do it with a
violent edge if need be.
Although Mongoose has hurt people
before, killed a few in fact, he will first try to find a way of surviving
without getting physical with someone.
But if there is no other way
around it then he certainly won’t be the one holding the short end of the
stick.

He
tells Max that he needs to stay put. Max is a half chocolate pit bull and half
red haired chow. During one of Mongoose’s ventures of the city he found Max
when he was just a pup roaming aimlessly around all by his lonesome. Not
wanting to leave the little pup, helpless and defenseless as it was – these
days dogs and cats are an endangered species – Mongoose took him in, named him
Max, and he’s been a loyal friend ever since.

Mongoose
rubs Max’s head and again says “Stay,” pointing a finger for good measure this
time.

Max
gives a little whine, letting his friend
know
that he
disapproves but will obey.

Mongoose
hunches down and moves out from behind the crumbled wall of a building and into
the street. The group is on the opposite side of the street headed east about
sixty yards from where he is. He closes in on them for about twenty yards,
moving and hiding behind the wreckage of vehicles and large debris and anything
else he can hide behind as he stalks his prey. He keeps a distance of about forty
yards away until he locates a good spot on the other side of the street. His
small agile frame moves stealthily across the street and behind a wrecked taxi.
He closed the gap considerably in doing
so,
they are
now less than half the distance as before. Wasting no time he unslings his
crossbow from his shoulder and takes aim.

At
that very moment something on the ground catches the bull’s eye, something
shiny. He bends down to pick it up.
A silver dollar.
What are the chances of that? When he
raises
back up he
sees an arrow sticking through the dreadlock’s in the back of Chaos’s head. The
black man’s knees buckle and he falls to the ground.

Damn.
He missed the bull. Mongoose hurries to reload. It takes only a couple of
seconds,
he’s had lots of practice. The bull yells out as
Mongoose takes aim. The other three turn to see what is going on. Each notices
their friend on the ground with an arrow poking out of his head like a
comedian’s head-dress. Confusion soon turns into rage. The short pudgy one
snatches
out a pair of knives from his belt, the woman
retrieves her own knife, and baldy takes out of the shopping cart a thick stick
skele
with long nails at its end. The bull whips
around just as Mongoose pulls the trigger and the arrow sinks in beneath his
right collarbone. The bull yells up into the sky, grabbing at the arrow. The
other two spot Mongoose hunkered behind the taxi and run after him. The short
pudgy one stops to help the bull with the arrow.

Mongoose
doesn’t panic, he reloads his crossbow once more and just as baldy jumps into
the air, rearing back his porcupine stick and yelling out like a mad man,
Mongoose aims and pulls the trigger. The arrow enters through one of
baldy’s
eyeballs and stops short of exiting the back of his
head,
he hits the ground like a sack of lead.

The
woman isn’t fazed, she charges ahead, wielding her knife. Mongoose has no time
to
reload,
he drops the crossbow and grabs his short
ax and lead pipe. He swings the pipe but the woman is out of her mind, she
doesn’t even flinch but keeps after him. He waits until she takes a stab at him
and when she does he dodges it easily enough, leaving her whole arm extended
and exposed. He lifts the ax and brings it down fast and hard, severing her
hand and leaving it to dangle from a piece of skin at the wrist. Her mouth
opens wide in a wild banshee cry, a
snaggled
grill if
he’s ever seen one, and then he silences her. Mongoose puts his foot on the
fallen woman’s face and yanks the ax out of her head.

Short
Pudgy frees the arrow from the bull’s chest and now both come after Mongoose.

“You’re
gonna
pay dearly for this, boy,” Short Pudgy growls.

“I’m
gonna
bash your head in and then I’m
gonna
sodomize your dead body,” says the bull.

“No
thanks,
” says Mongoose, “I’m not into the whole S and
M thing. But you two can go right ahead and enjoy yourselves.”

Mongoose
gives way to chase and the two pursue him. He doesn’t go far, maybe a hundred
feet down the street, across it, and back again. He knows they’re not as fast
as he is so he will play with them. They holler and cuss him as he taunts them.
The two finally separate to opposite sides of the street to try to box him in.
Mongoose plays into it and once he is between the two they close in. He allows
them to get within twenty feet of him and then he jets to the side and shoots
behind a car. Both run over and Mongoose jumps onto the car’s roof. The bull
and Short Pudgy step around opposite sides of the car, watching the boy’s every
move. Mongoose deliberately keeps closer to Short Pudgy’s side, and simultaneously
both lunge forward.  Mongoose jumps high, flipping backwards off the car.
Short Pudgy swings his arms around to cut him off at the legs but misses by a
nanosecond. At that same moment the bull swings his club, extending the full
length of his arm over the car’s roof and smashes the club right into Short
Pudgy’s head, knocking him out cold.

Mongoose
lands wrong and falls on his back. The bull flies around the car before
Mongoose is able to get to his feet.

“
Aaahhh
!”
  The bull yells.

Mongoose
rolls to the side as the club is brought down by his head, breaking the club in
half. Mongoose swings the ax but the bull catches it by the handle, yanking it
out of Mongoose’s hand and pitching it to the side. Mongoose swings the pipe,
this time hitting him on the head but only to piss him off even more. The
second swing causes the lead pipe to join the ax. Mongoose quickly whistles as
loud as he can before he is snatched up by the neck and slammed into the side
of the car. He is then slammed again and again until the bull pins him onto the
hood of the car and squeezes his neck. The bull’s eyes are red and mad with
rage, teeth clinched with spittle and strings of saliva dripping from his lips.

Mongoose’s
face turns into different shades of purple and blue, the world starts to tunnel
into blackness.
Just as life as he knows it is about to be
extinguished a dark streak flies across his vision.
The grasp around his
neck is released and he catches his breath with a burning rush of air. He hears
a bunch of hollering and growling somewhere on the ground below him. He focuses
and sees Max, tearing into the bull’s face.

He
doesn’t call Max off. He lets him have his fun.

“So
you are meaning to tell me that a boy killed Chaos, Tattoo, and Celeste, and
then whooped the two of you, singlehandedly, and then took our food?
A boy!”

“Actually,
boss, a dog attacked me,” Bruno says.

“A
dog,” Vincent says blandly.

“Well,
yeah, a really mean dog.”

“Of
course it was.” Vincent scoffs. And to Pan, he says, “And what about you? Did
the boy and his
dog
nearly beat you to death and eat you alive as well?”

“No.
Not exactly,” Pan says, flush faced.

“Well
then, what?”

“Bruno
hit me in the head with his club. But it wasn’t his fault. We were trying to
get the boy –”

Vincent’s
hand shoots up, silencing anything further. “I don’t want to hear it!” Fuming,
he slams his fist down onto the arm of his chair with each ford. “I! Don’t!
Want! To! Hear! It! I send the five of you out to do something as simple as
finding some good food and bringing it back to me and you can’t even do that.
Tell me something, how many people have you two killed?
Hm
?”

Pan
shrugs his shoulders.
“Lots of people.”

“Yeah,
a lot,” Bruno agrees.

“So
it’s nothing new to either of you, is it? It comes to you naturally, right?
Someone puts themselves in our way, causes trouble in the midst of my doing,
you kill them, right? Easy as pie, right? So how is it that a
boy
and
his
doggie
kills three of my men and injure two?”

“This
wasn’t just any boy.”

“Or
dog,” Bruno adds.

“He
was fast.”

“Like
lightning,” says Bruno.

“And good with weapons.”

“With very sharp teeth.”

“And
there was no fear in him, no fear at all. It was almost like he was toying with
us.”

“Toying
with you,” Vincent says dully. “You
make him sound as though he’s some kind of trained warrior. Where do you
suppose he came from? Japan?”

Bruno
responds. “He didn’t look Japanese. More like eastern European; blondish hair,
fair skinned . . .”

Vincent
curls the fingers of both of his hands over the edge of the smooth wooden
surface of his chairs armrest and white knuckles them. “Shut it, you idiot,”
Vincent scolds Bruno. “I don’t care what he looks like or where he’s from! I
want him and my food brought to me and I don’t care what it takes, just get it
done. Otherwise we’ll just have to feast on the two of you instead.”

Pan
starts to say something but stops. He starts again, nearly saying it, but holds
back again.

Vincent
tries to control his impatience. “For
crissake
, just
say it.”

“We
don’t even know where to start. He could be anywhere in the city by now.”

Vincent
takes in a slow steady breath and wills himself to stay calm. In a tone clotted
with irritation Vincent says, “Start in the area this took place, question
everyone, and go from there.”

They
turn to leave and Bruno whispers to Pan, “We might never find that little
bastard.”

“Don’t
fret,” Pan whispers confidently. “We’ll just get some more food somewhere and
then find some other miserable boy and kill him and bring
his
body back
to Vincent. He’ll never be the wiser.”

“And
one more thing,” Vincent says, just before the two exit the room. “I want the
boy brought back alive. Under no circumstances is he to be killed. If he is as the
two of you say he is, then we can use him on our team.”

Shoulders
slumped and sighing
deflatedly
, Pan and Bruno leave
the room.

The
masked man stood silently and ever alert at Vincent’s side the entire time. He
is Vincent’s personal body guard and assassin. He is as loyal and fearless as
they come, will kill on command and will play no silly’s about it. Vincent says
to him, “Let everyone know that they will be expected to be in the conference
room tomorrow morning. It’s time we made plans to make my debut at The
Pinnacle. I’m sure James would like to know that his men are still alive and
not so well. Maybe I’ll put on a little show so he can see with his own eyes
what I am capable of. Perhaps that will give him the incentive to act
accordingly.”

Vincent
lays the back of his head against the tall backrest of his king’s throne-chair;
a big, heavy chair covered in intricate carvings that reminded him of a king’s
throne when he first saw it, therefore it was fitting for himself.

“Oh,
one more thing,” Vincent says. “Have Jacko send for Peaches-n-Cream. I’m a
little stressed, and those two really know how to suck the stress right out of
you.”