Covenant: Five down out of Ten plus One
New Jersey:
I pried the bottle out of my cold hand yesterday morning. The first time in three months that I've woken up like this. Cotton batting from the back of my tongue to the top of my head, a river couldn't hydrate the desert behind these tired eyes. The last time I woke up like this was the last time she called me.
My name was in the paper, a Los Angeles over night sensation, tabloid and careened out in stretch limo lettering. "A mockery of the fine man I once was" as one rag so eloquently put it. A trash mag shot me the old "Good cop plays dress up" routine. To her credit she didn't talk about her self, she didn't stab at me with questions about how this would look to her family or friends. For the first time since the kidnapping it was all about Archer.
Not how he was coping, not about him, but for him. "What will Archer think when he sees pictures of you in that pathetic get up stamped all over the t.v"? "What should he say when all the other kids at school make fun of him when they realize his father has lost his mind"? "Did you think of Archer when you decided to do something this stupid this...this damaging to us".
It was nice to hear her say "Us" for the first time in a year, it was also nice to hear Archer was finally back in school. I left it at the good news and hung up in her fucking ear, my mother had few sayings (she only spoke when sober after all) and the chief among them was "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything", better to hang up than remind the faithless cow that I did this all for Archer, so that kids from now on could sleep safely knowing someone like "lady justice" was out there making the bad guys pay it forward.
Pretty words, glad I didn't say them though. David would have had me sound like one hell of a fool soon after that. I don't know if David ever really considered what Lady would have wanted when he cooked up his grand idea to put the Sadist away. The night he sucker punched me with that bullshit suit of his and then sat by watching that monster trim the hookers fingers like stubborn weeds he lost any credibility in arguing the want to follow in Ladies foot steps.
Oh he's got his own one man show in L.A. no doubt, and when he gets home and unfolds his paper I'm sure he gets just as much of a kick out of the things printed about his/my "alter ego". Seems those bumbling police just can't keep me out of the picture, seems I'm always there one step ahead of the police putting an end to one nut job after another.
No real criminals though, the L.A. me never takes on the mob, or the local gangs that make the mob look like small time these days, the L.A. me never busts a vice racket or leaves a pile of bank robbers tied up and beaten by the police station in the morning. No, the L.A. me is busy building the bigger, badder, Hannibal Lector one full padded cell at a time. And justice for all...indeed.
I sound convincing, I sound like one self righteous force for good don't I. The fact is it's all complete bullshit. The day after the police got a lawyers box full of evidence against the monster in the desk clerk suit, the day an unmarked police car reluctantly dropped David off in his ridiculous over the top super hero outfit. Was the day I told David exactly what I thought of his idea for capturing the Sadist.
It was also the same day he finally admitted he was going to kill the Sadist and damn the law, it was the day he admitted he was still agency and the agency wanted the Sadist liquidated for its own security related reasons. It was the day I stopped being me.
It was a mixed divorce, he got it all...on paper. He gets to be me and "James Stabler" gets to be the vigilante hero of the torn in two city of Los Angeles. He gets to play his cat and mouse games with the sickest of the sick, bidding his time before he strings the Sadist up by his feet and plants his eggs inside him. I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard. Then I take the time to review the crime scene photos of what he did to lady justice.
My inner nine year old still cheers David on like a leukemia patient hoping Babe Ruth will pull off the next home run just for him. I only wanted one thing out of the whole awful deal. My own way to do right by her. Sounded simple at the time, who knew you could be shooting the wrong side of thirty five and still drum up naivety.
I asked to be kept in the agency loop, only for the gear, for a new start, somewhere new, somewhere I might be able to learn the "spandex ropes" on my own time. To carry on the sort of career that would have made Lady Justice proud. New York city was the first to shake off the vigilante crack down, the first to legalize "super heroes" officially in the united states. The first city with enough balls and enough dire need to cast its lot in favor of ridding itself of its growing social woes.
A new identity, a nice bank account and for once the ability to do it all the right way and as long as I kept it by the book, legally. At first it seemed refreshing, New Yorkers welcomed their heroes with open arms, but the few who stepped out into the light where snuffed out like candles in a strong wind. New York had it's share of costumed vigilantes just like most major cities.
When I arrived "Mr. Cripto" was all the rage, he'd been banging collective criminal heads together for ten years maybe even more. He made the dire mistake of outing his identity, some sick piece of work sliced and diced his entire family, mailing him pieces once a day. The F.B.I. had no sooner set up a task force when Cripto drove his old station wagon out to the tunnel and put a .45 in his brain on national T.v.
Then it was "Madame Mira", she started doing her work in the day light, started putting the hurt on Asian interests in prostitution rings and drug dealing. Didn't take the Asians more than two weeks to hire some piece of shit with a private detective certificate to track her down to her place of residence and even the bank she still worked at as a day job.
News papers wouldn't give details, but word on the street is they made her pull a train before they filmed a little private snuff for the big bosses back in Vietnam. Then we hit back.
I realized I wasn't the polish on the big apple, we where maggots, all of us, some black, some white, but still maggots. A whole cell of the Asians was hacked to shit, again nothing in the news but word on the street was some ex-military shiv dropped in a little before I did and went on a spree. Then it was the Italian's turn on the spit.
Some gutsy bitch didn't even bother with the mask anymore, she took it off and even let the cameras get a few good shots as she went through the Bronx playing 50/50 half of them wound up in holding cells half of them ended up on the cooling board, the final piece...Boss Ferreli of the family of the same name throat slit, fingers removed and mailed to the remaining bosses as a warning.
Turns out she was a porn star, turns out she fucked most of the one's she killed, she went by some moniker or another but it doesn't matter now, now she's "Widow X" thanks to the papers and she's also on the wanted list all the way to the top. Any brains left in her head she's fighting crime in Akron Ohio right about now.
For my part I finally got cooking right around the time all the organized crime got good and disorganized, they had started in here now just like in L.A. the sickos, the freaks and the carnival side shows, the ones men like me make. The leviathan that was happy to remain mostly dormant until morons like myself had to go poking in with sticks. My first real crack, my first "case" wasn't even making the news, some shit head was nabbing small time city officials and putting them on the internet via webcam.
Stolen right out of a B movie it was simple a mechanical voice would read off all the bullshit and awful back hand deals the guy was involved in and people got to vote on whether the guy lived or died. As both a credit to the people and the asshole behind it the first few lived and where found alive with little to say about their time in captivity.
Three people into it and it was almost comical, two councilmen and and A.D.A. out of business with no lives lost. Then the prick got a hold of the chief of Transportation and outed him as a child molester. Took less than an hour for enough people to vote for the guy to die. The webcam turned off for four minutes and when it came back on the chief was sitting with a smoking whole where his chest should have been.
The F.B.I. god bless their little pointy heads tried arresting everyone who voted yes by using registered computer id's. They got fed up after the first five thousand or so. The darker parts of me shot right past it, I'm not sure if anyone would have faulted the people who voted or the freak who hosted it for killing a pedophile. Then it got worse, it stopped being politicians and it went to reality t.v.
Within a month it stopped being a webcam and it went underground. With national resources on the case the people behind it stopped making it easy to find, they went to film and the film got political. By the time they where putting the chief in the ground it came out he was innocent but he was Jewish, so was the A.D.A. and so was where the councilmen, although the allegations against them went and stood in court. Three of these "films" later and they weren't taking votes anymore, they where abducting Jewish people and reading outright falsehoods about them.
They had begun singling out business men and religious leaders and where starving them and pinning them against each other. Stomaching enough to watch a Jewelry store owner breaking a toothbrush in half and stabbing a store clerk with it to get free was where anyone had to draw the line. I placed calls, I made inquires, I floated around bars and attended a few meetings. Funny thing about hate, you have to work for it, hate isn't for the lazy and I was quickly introduced to some very busy men.
When you think about bikers you paint pictures in your head, big burly bushy bearded social outcasts, men who pimp out their old ladies and maybe cook meth in their basements. Screw all that, I've met a lot of different "kinds" of bikers in my time. These guys wore business suits and played nine to five. They lived in Manhattan and did their riding and killing in New Jersey. They wore a patch on the weekends that labeled them the "gray watch". But on the street they where called the "Manhattan Werewolves". The former sounds cool for the poetry readers the later would end up defining them more than I could ever imagine.
One of the social outings I went on was a "Proud American" meeting, it was when I first ran into Flash, he looked somehow different, for tough and angry he more than fit the bill, but I chalk it up to men of like minds being able to single each other out. The "Proud Americans" where odd for racists, they took anyone as long as you where born in America and as long as you weren't a Muslim or a Jew.
They talked a good talk and at one time or another might have even taken a walk a few times, but they weren't what I was looking for, the "gray watch" members who attended where the fish I was after. I took photos that first meeting and they taught me two things. One was to never under estimate my skills as a detective, Flash came up all red flags and flashing computer screens. As much as it hurt my pride I contacted David and sure enough Flash was black ops from top to bottom. Nine to one he was the one who went after the Vietnamese. One to one he was at that meeting for the same reason I was.
The second thing I learned or should have learned that day was when the agency can't find any information on someone, that person is either a spook or a Manhattan Werewolf. A few more meetings, a few more nights at the bar and two more of the party videos later I was ready to find some real information and a key to where the movies where being made.
I followed a couple of these "Manhattan Werewolves" to an "after hours" party for one of the meetings. It was all punch bowls of spiked drinks and cake platters of anything you could shoot snort or smoke. Flash was there and seemed to be working another of the "werewolves". He and I passed a few times and when I failed to make any real head way I managed to find my way out to the drive way, Flash met me on the side walk hands out and "Hey my name's Charlie, what's yours"?
But before I could make appearances my hand was in his and his face was inches from my ear "Stay the fuck outta this small time". "Sure thing...Flash".
His narrow brown eyes widened only enough to snuff out his own surprise. "Who the fuck sent you"?
"I Sent me pal, and I'm putting an end to the videos with or without you".
He pulls away pushing a beer into my face and clapping me on the back, ushering me back towards the house in a friendly gesture "You have any idea what you're getting involved in new fish"?
"Anti-semitic bikers, making sick videos".
"You're one of those people who starts a jigsaw in the fucking middle aren't you"?
"Care to fill me in then since you have all the details"?
We enter the house as my contacts notice my re-appearance. They join the show and start heckling me and my "new" friend into taking a hit of this a shot of that. To my disgust as well as my astonishment Flash starts in on what ever they hand him and I've got to pound my fists preaching more hate filled bullshit to get them off the scent of the fact that I haven't done anything all night.
It's the next morning before I wake up retching with the thought of all the simple minded bullshit I agreed with the night and early morning before. I begin to get a whiff of what David must have gone through just watching that hookers fingers fall to the floor under the pulse of the blood.
He's at the door with a cheap bottle of tequila and my stomach lurches like a public bus at the stop. I don't even bother to say anything I just kick upon the screen door and make for the kitchen sink. He mentions something about making sure not to offer me anything at the moment and he takes a pull on the bottle.
"How the hell are you still drinking"?
He snorts a laugh with out so much as smiling, "Simple new fish, I never slept".
"Quite the lifestyle you got going for yourself".
"You're one to talk former Detective James Stabler of Los Angeles". "Oh yeah, I can do my own digging, I don't need to make phone calls".
I manage enough blood to the cheeks to turn from green to a bright pink, my mind is firing off insults that start with "your momma" but as I'm graduating to "I'm rubber and you're glue", when he cuts it all off.
"Save it James, you've been through hell and you can see hell sticking out through the creases in my skin". "Let's get to business".
I give up the color and the thoughts and return to simple muscle contraction and bile production as he continues.
"I wont bullshit you, I've seen some faith testing shit in my time, but this borders on the fucking surreal, I'm not going to bother fucking with you or lying to you, we don't have a hotdog's pleasuring chance in a hallway of making it out if we go any farther down this road".
"What the hell are you talking about man"?
"Do you think they're just bikers, just a loose bunch of Jew haters and drug addicts"?
"What should I think they are, fucking Martians".
"That would make better sense than the truth...".
"All this shit is real flattering Flash, I get it you want to make sure the new kid on the block doesn't bite off more than he can chew and all, you seem to forget this isn't my first rodeo, and I sure as shit know it isn't yours, we gonna shut this shit down or are you going to sit on my couch building up towards telling me a ghost story".
"Alright James, enough bullshit you're right, meet me here at around midnight tonight, bring your gear and get over the pukes before you show".
He stamps a hand written piece of paper on the coffee table and takes another pull of the tequila, on his way out he sticks it under my nose and says "Hair of the dog", I convulse in a fresh spat of production as he takes his leave.
That night sure as shit I'm there bottle between my thighs driving reckless into the light of a festering yellow moon, the trees whipping past me on the way into upper New Jersey. He meets me at a turn out and we walk into the woods from there. I use what stealth training I learned in the agency and manage fine but I walk stunned next to a man wreaking of cheap tequila who is managing to put me to shame.
As the hour rounds out we find ourselves in a barn on some strangers property, a scope and a pair of night vision goggles for sight. A distant fire kicks up in a field, from even this distance the faint sound of music and laughter can be heard, a group of individuals surround a wooden pin where two dirty people circle each other. The two wear city clothes, stained with blood and soil, even at this distance the meaning is unmistakable. He hands me the scope and I see two people that could have once easily been working in the same office room circling each other for weakness ready to use the crude tree branch cudgels they possess.
"You found where they film this shit and you haven't gone in there yet"?
He just puts his finger to his lip and takes the scope from me.
"What the hell man, why wait, you looking for fucking news head lines and glory too"?
"James...I've charged up a hill under enemy fire before...have you"?
"If you dug enough to find out who I really am, you know my past, you know I never served".
"Right...I know that and yet I'll ask you this, why would a man like me not go in there and put an end to the whole thing"?
"I don't fucking no...that's why I'm asking you dammit"?
"Shut up and understand, look past what's going on right now, I'll make it easy for you and I'll let you think the two broads got a lift from a unicorn and got dropped off home to see their families again".
"Fuck you Flash".
"I get that all the time for some reason, now shut up".
Minutes go by, they drag like hours over razor blades, I've got a hand on one of the pistols I took as part of the "new costume", my inner peter pan wants to grow wings and jump in guns blazing, but a man who has seen nearly twenty years of the worst in humanity and combat isn't, it unsettles me. Keeps me guessing, is he just drunk, lost his nerve, some sort of PTSD?
Then he hands me the scope and tells me to "shut up and look and don't look away".
I find my self doing the last thing I'd ever want to do I glue my eye to the scope and I watch the horror show. The victor has finished landing useless futile blows on the vanquished one in the pen. She drops the blood drenched club and stands pleading with the ones who surround her. Then it happens, slowly and maliciously, like a dog playing with a gopher until it stops being entertaining. The change, faces stretching out in comic skew, arms elongating to meet the gate of legs buckled in the wrong direction. They descend on the victor like...like a pack of...god like a pack or wolves on a trapped bear cub.
I jerk away in reaction to the idea, my mouth opens wide and my eyes glass over, childhood fears are accessed as primordial racial fears grip hold in my guts. Small pieces of my sanity break off like icicles in a chill wind.
"Still want to go in guns blazing new fish"?
"More than ever dammit", I find my self saying with a reassuring confidence.
"Not tonight, tomorrow, this shit goes on nightly from what I can gather, I'm bringing in an old friend and I suggest you call one of yours".
We part ways and I find my self making the most embarrassing call of my life, David answers bleary with sleep as I start in with what I've learned and seen. Part of me expects him to burst out in laughter and part of me expects him to just hang up and change his number. I slip the W word for lack of any better explanation and his end goes dead.
I hear nothing and assume the worst, my hand going slowly towards the receiver when I hear his voice say "Am I my brother's keeper?"
"What"?
"Nothing James, listen I'm largely ignorant on the subject and my only contact isn't available sadly". "Best I can say is aim for the skull and do as much as you can". "That failing try fire, and destruction of the whole being". "I'd say steer clear from it altogether, but I doubt that's an option is it"?
"I'm afraid not David".
"Then I'll wish you best of luck James, and you'll drop me a line when you're safe yes"?
"Sure thing".
The conversation ends as strangely as it begins and when Flash calls me I'm just as vague. I beat him to the meeting place, I'm all wide brimmed hat and black matted .45s, the tactical gear fits nicely under the high waist pants and the square collar red shirt. I don't have a name just a concept, a twenties action hero like the once's I used to read in the old 20th century comics as a kid.
I wont wait for him, I'd like to but two more innocent people are herded into the pin and the hollering begins. They're all high and drunk, what ever they are they aren't running on a full tank and I'm a fucking V-12. The young girl lets out the squeal scream of a shock at the sight of remains in the pin as the cheap suit opposite her appears to be resigning himself to the "them or me mentality".
I can't wait I wont wait, they can add me to the fucking menu but I wont sit and watch, not this time, not this FUCKING TIME. I run in and I James lungs and with out me James couldn't breathe, but right now it doesn't matter because James is breathing sulfur and eating coal. The one closest takes one mag safe and a hot round to the head, there is nothing left above the neck and it gets the attention of everyone in the area.
I pinion my self between the girl and the suit with the club, whether by blind need or simple uncaring greed the moron ignores the fact that I've got pistols and comes forward, he leaves with a broken wrist and a broken nose, from then its the hunt and I don't have any hounds, in fact I've grown a fox tail in the way of a girl sixteen at most screaming and begging behind me as if I was the risen Jesus come to account for people's sins.
She's pinned to the side of a wooden building with the water flowing behind us now and I'm in front of her, one of them took a chunk out of my left arm and the tactical gear turned useless in it's teeth. They're backed off with a nice line of their buddies dead and dieing around them, some with torn clothes still attached to their bodies some still wearing "gray watch" jackets.
I'm getting blister hot and blotchy rash red as I realize I'm empty on one hand and five down out of a Ten plus One in the other, time running out on the clock and I've only got one ace in the hole, I hear a distant whirring coming closer and a growl some how deeper and far more metalic than the endless row of teeth and night red eyes before me.
One way or another, this ends at the river, I can feel a change and I'm wondering whether it starts in the teeth or in the gums, for the girl behind me, I'm willing to see. One way or the other. And justice for all...indeed.
American Werewolves: American Werewolves
Do you want excitement baby?
Do you want to take a ride?
You want some action baby
And you're not afraid to die
These scars won't last forever
Can vengeance make them heal?
If you give me your heart, baby
We can make it out of here
And now...they call us monsters
And now...they call us creeps
And all we ever wanted was
To make them scream
I've seen the devil, baby
I've seen him in your eyes
If you saw the world was ending
Would you be afraid to die?
New Jersey:
I pried the bottle out of my cold hand yesterday morning. The first time in three months that I've woken up like this. Cotton batting from the back of my tongue to the top of my head, a river couldn't hydrate the desert behind these tired eyes. The last time I woke up like this was the last time she called me.
My name was in the paper, a Los Angeles over night sensation, tabloid and careened out in stretch limo lettering. "A mockery of the fine man I once was" as one rag so eloquently put it. A trash mag shot me the old "Good cop plays dress up" routine. To her credit she didn't talk about her self, she didn't stab at me with questions about how this would look to her family or friends. For the first time since the kidnapping it was all about Archer.
Not how he was coping, not about him, but for him. "What will Archer think when he sees pictures of you in that pathetic get up stamped all over the t.v"? "What should he say when all the other kids at school make fun of him when they realize his father has lost his mind"? "Did you think of Archer when you decided to do something this stupid this...this damaging to us".
It was nice to hear her say "Us" for the first time in a year, it was also nice to hear Archer was finally back in school. I left it at the good news and hung up in her fucking ear, my mother had few sayings (she only spoke when sober after all) and the chief among them was "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything", better to hang up than remind the faithless cow that I did this all for Archer, so that kids from now on could sleep safely knowing someone like "lady justice" was out there making the bad guys pay it forward.
Pretty words, glad I didn't say them though. David would have had me sound like one hell of a fool soon after that. I don't know if David ever really considered what Lady would have wanted when he cooked up his grand idea to put the Sadist away. The night he sucker punched me with that bullshit suit of his and then sat by watching that monster trim the hookers fingers like stubborn weeds he lost any credibility in arguing the want to follow in Ladies foot steps.
Oh he's got his own one man show in L.A. no doubt, and when he gets home and unfolds his paper I'm sure he gets just as much of a kick out of the things printed about his/my "alter ego". Seems those bumbling police just can't keep me out of the picture, seems I'm always there one step ahead of the police putting an end to one nut job after another.
No real criminals though, the L.A. me never takes on the mob, or the local gangs that make the mob look like small time these days, the L.A. me never busts a vice racket or leaves a pile of bank robbers tied up and beaten by the police station in the morning. No, the L.A. me is busy building the bigger, badder, Hannibal Lector one full padded cell at a time. And justice for all...indeed.
I sound convincing, I sound like one self righteous force for good don't I. The fact is it's all complete bullshit. The day after the police got a lawyers box full of evidence against the monster in the desk clerk suit, the day an unmarked police car reluctantly dropped David off in his ridiculous over the top super hero outfit. Was the day I told David exactly what I thought of his idea for capturing the Sadist.
It was also the same day he finally admitted he was going to kill the Sadist and damn the law, it was the day he admitted he was still agency and the agency wanted the Sadist liquidated for its own security related reasons. It was the day I stopped being me.
It was a mixed divorce, he got it all...on paper. He gets to be me and "James Stabler" gets to be the vigilante hero of the torn in two city of Los Angeles. He gets to play his cat and mouse games with the sickest of the sick, bidding his time before he strings the Sadist up by his feet and plants his eggs inside him. I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard. Then I take the time to review the crime scene photos of what he did to lady justice.
My inner nine year old still cheers David on like a leukemia patient hoping Babe Ruth will pull off the next home run just for him. I only wanted one thing out of the whole awful deal. My own way to do right by her. Sounded simple at the time, who knew you could be shooting the wrong side of thirty five and still drum up naivety.
I asked to be kept in the agency loop, only for the gear, for a new start, somewhere new, somewhere I might be able to learn the "spandex ropes" on my own time. To carry on the sort of career that would have made Lady Justice proud. New York city was the first to shake off the vigilante crack down, the first to legalize "super heroes" officially in the united states. The first city with enough balls and enough dire need to cast its lot in favor of ridding itself of its growing social woes.
A new identity, a nice bank account and for once the ability to do it all the right way and as long as I kept it by the book, legally. At first it seemed refreshing, New Yorkers welcomed their heroes with open arms, but the few who stepped out into the light where snuffed out like candles in a strong wind. New York had it's share of costumed vigilantes just like most major cities.
When I arrived "Mr. Cripto" was all the rage, he'd been banging collective criminal heads together for ten years maybe even more. He made the dire mistake of outing his identity, some sick piece of work sliced and diced his entire family, mailing him pieces once a day. The F.B.I. had no sooner set up a task force when Cripto drove his old station wagon out to the tunnel and put a .45 in his brain on national T.v.
Then it was "Madame Mira", she started doing her work in the day light, started putting the hurt on Asian interests in prostitution rings and drug dealing. Didn't take the Asians more than two weeks to hire some piece of shit with a private detective certificate to track her down to her place of residence and even the bank she still worked at as a day job.
News papers wouldn't give details, but word on the street is they made her pull a train before they filmed a little private snuff for the big bosses back in Vietnam. Then we hit back.
I realized I wasn't the polish on the big apple, we where maggots, all of us, some black, some white, but still maggots. A whole cell of the Asians was hacked to shit, again nothing in the news but word on the street was some ex-military shiv dropped in a little before I did and went on a spree. Then it was the Italian's turn on the spit.
Some gutsy bitch didn't even bother with the mask anymore, she took it off and even let the cameras get a few good shots as she went through the Bronx playing 50/50 half of them wound up in holding cells half of them ended up on the cooling board, the final piece...Boss Ferreli of the family of the same name throat slit, fingers removed and mailed to the remaining bosses as a warning.
Turns out she was a porn star, turns out she fucked most of the one's she killed, she went by some moniker or another but it doesn't matter now, now she's "Widow X" thanks to the papers and she's also on the wanted list all the way to the top. Any brains left in her head she's fighting crime in Akron Ohio right about now.
For my part I finally got cooking right around the time all the organized crime got good and disorganized, they had started in here now just like in L.A. the sickos, the freaks and the carnival side shows, the ones men like me make. The leviathan that was happy to remain mostly dormant until morons like myself had to go poking in with sticks. My first real crack, my first "case" wasn't even making the news, some shit head was nabbing small time city officials and putting them on the internet via webcam.
Stolen right out of a B movie it was simple a mechanical voice would read off all the bullshit and awful back hand deals the guy was involved in and people got to vote on whether the guy lived or died. As both a credit to the people and the asshole behind it the first few lived and where found alive with little to say about their time in captivity.
Three people into it and it was almost comical, two councilmen and and A.D.A. out of business with no lives lost. Then the prick got a hold of the chief of Transportation and outed him as a child molester. Took less than an hour for enough people to vote for the guy to die. The webcam turned off for four minutes and when it came back on the chief was sitting with a smoking whole where his chest should have been.
The F.B.I. god bless their little pointy heads tried arresting everyone who voted yes by using registered computer id's. They got fed up after the first five thousand or so. The darker parts of me shot right past it, I'm not sure if anyone would have faulted the people who voted or the freak who hosted it for killing a pedophile. Then it got worse, it stopped being politicians and it went to reality t.v.
Within a month it stopped being a webcam and it went underground. With national resources on the case the people behind it stopped making it easy to find, they went to film and the film got political. By the time they where putting the chief in the ground it came out he was innocent but he was Jewish, so was the A.D.A. and so was where the councilmen, although the allegations against them went and stood in court. Three of these "films" later and they weren't taking votes anymore, they where abducting Jewish people and reading outright falsehoods about them.
They had begun singling out business men and religious leaders and where starving them and pinning them against each other. Stomaching enough to watch a Jewelry store owner breaking a toothbrush in half and stabbing a store clerk with it to get free was where anyone had to draw the line. I placed calls, I made inquires, I floated around bars and attended a few meetings. Funny thing about hate, you have to work for it, hate isn't for the lazy and I was quickly introduced to some very busy men.
When you think about bikers you paint pictures in your head, big burly bushy bearded social outcasts, men who pimp out their old ladies and maybe cook meth in their basements. Screw all that, I've met a lot of different "kinds" of bikers in my time. These guys wore business suits and played nine to five. They lived in Manhattan and did their riding and killing in New Jersey. They wore a patch on the weekends that labeled them the "gray watch". But on the street they where called the "Manhattan Werewolves". The former sounds cool for the poetry readers the later would end up defining them more than I could ever imagine.
One of the social outings I went on was a "Proud American" meeting, it was when I first ran into Flash, he looked somehow different, for tough and angry he more than fit the bill, but I chalk it up to men of like minds being able to single each other out. The "Proud Americans" where odd for racists, they took anyone as long as you where born in America and as long as you weren't a Muslim or a Jew.
They talked a good talk and at one time or another might have even taken a walk a few times, but they weren't what I was looking for, the "gray watch" members who attended where the fish I was after. I took photos that first meeting and they taught me two things. One was to never under estimate my skills as a detective, Flash came up all red flags and flashing computer screens. As much as it hurt my pride I contacted David and sure enough Flash was black ops from top to bottom. Nine to one he was the one who went after the Vietnamese. One to one he was at that meeting for the same reason I was.
The second thing I learned or should have learned that day was when the agency can't find any information on someone, that person is either a spook or a Manhattan Werewolf. A few more meetings, a few more nights at the bar and two more of the party videos later I was ready to find some real information and a key to where the movies where being made.
I followed a couple of these "Manhattan Werewolves" to an "after hours" party for one of the meetings. It was all punch bowls of spiked drinks and cake platters of anything you could shoot snort or smoke. Flash was there and seemed to be working another of the "werewolves". He and I passed a few times and when I failed to make any real head way I managed to find my way out to the drive way, Flash met me on the side walk hands out and "Hey my name's Charlie, what's yours"?
But before I could make appearances my hand was in his and his face was inches from my ear "Stay the fuck outta this small time". "Sure thing...Flash".
His narrow brown eyes widened only enough to snuff out his own surprise. "Who the fuck sent you"?
"I Sent me pal, and I'm putting an end to the videos with or without you".
He pulls away pushing a beer into my face and clapping me on the back, ushering me back towards the house in a friendly gesture "You have any idea what you're getting involved in new fish"?
"Anti-semitic bikers, making sick videos".
"You're one of those people who starts a jigsaw in the fucking middle aren't you"?
"Care to fill me in then since you have all the details"?
We enter the house as my contacts notice my re-appearance. They join the show and start heckling me and my "new" friend into taking a hit of this a shot of that. To my disgust as well as my astonishment Flash starts in on what ever they hand him and I've got to pound my fists preaching more hate filled bullshit to get them off the scent of the fact that I haven't done anything all night.
It's the next morning before I wake up retching with the thought of all the simple minded bullshit I agreed with the night and early morning before. I begin to get a whiff of what David must have gone through just watching that hookers fingers fall to the floor under the pulse of the blood.
He's at the door with a cheap bottle of tequila and my stomach lurches like a public bus at the stop. I don't even bother to say anything I just kick upon the screen door and make for the kitchen sink. He mentions something about making sure not to offer me anything at the moment and he takes a pull on the bottle.
"How the hell are you still drinking"?
He snorts a laugh with out so much as smiling, "Simple new fish, I never slept".
"Quite the lifestyle you got going for yourself".
"You're one to talk former Detective James Stabler of Los Angeles". "Oh yeah, I can do my own digging, I don't need to make phone calls".
I manage enough blood to the cheeks to turn from green to a bright pink, my mind is firing off insults that start with "your momma" but as I'm graduating to "I'm rubber and you're glue", when he cuts it all off.
"Save it James, you've been through hell and you can see hell sticking out through the creases in my skin". "Let's get to business".
I give up the color and the thoughts and return to simple muscle contraction and bile production as he continues.
"I wont bullshit you, I've seen some faith testing shit in my time, but this borders on the fucking surreal, I'm not going to bother fucking with you or lying to you, we don't have a hotdog's pleasuring chance in a hallway of making it out if we go any farther down this road".
"What the hell are you talking about man"?
"Do you think they're just bikers, just a loose bunch of Jew haters and drug addicts"?
"What should I think they are, fucking Martians".
"That would make better sense than the truth...".
"All this shit is real flattering Flash, I get it you want to make sure the new kid on the block doesn't bite off more than he can chew and all, you seem to forget this isn't my first rodeo, and I sure as shit know it isn't yours, we gonna shut this shit down or are you going to sit on my couch building up towards telling me a ghost story".
"Alright James, enough bullshit you're right, meet me here at around midnight tonight, bring your gear and get over the pukes before you show".
He stamps a hand written piece of paper on the coffee table and takes another pull of the tequila, on his way out he sticks it under my nose and says "Hair of the dog", I convulse in a fresh spat of production as he takes his leave.
That night sure as shit I'm there bottle between my thighs driving reckless into the light of a festering yellow moon, the trees whipping past me on the way into upper New Jersey. He meets me at a turn out and we walk into the woods from there. I use what stealth training I learned in the agency and manage fine but I walk stunned next to a man wreaking of cheap tequila who is managing to put me to shame.
As the hour rounds out we find ourselves in a barn on some strangers property, a scope and a pair of night vision goggles for sight. A distant fire kicks up in a field, from even this distance the faint sound of music and laughter can be heard, a group of individuals surround a wooden pin where two dirty people circle each other. The two wear city clothes, stained with blood and soil, even at this distance the meaning is unmistakable. He hands me the scope and I see two people that could have once easily been working in the same office room circling each other for weakness ready to use the crude tree branch cudgels they possess.
"You found where they film this shit and you haven't gone in there yet"?
He just puts his finger to his lip and takes the scope from me.
"What the hell man, why wait, you looking for fucking news head lines and glory too"?
"James...I've charged up a hill under enemy fire before...have you"?
"If you dug enough to find out who I really am, you know my past, you know I never served".
"Right...I know that and yet I'll ask you this, why would a man like me not go in there and put an end to the whole thing"?
"I don't fucking no...that's why I'm asking you dammit"?
"Shut up and understand, look past what's going on right now, I'll make it easy for you and I'll let you think the two broads got a lift from a unicorn and got dropped off home to see their families again".
"Fuck you Flash".
"I get that all the time for some reason, now shut up".
Minutes go by, they drag like hours over razor blades, I've got a hand on one of the pistols I took as part of the "new costume", my inner peter pan wants to grow wings and jump in guns blazing, but a man who has seen nearly twenty years of the worst in humanity and combat isn't, it unsettles me. Keeps me guessing, is he just drunk, lost his nerve, some sort of PTSD?
Then he hands me the scope and tells me to "shut up and look and don't look away".
I find my self doing the last thing I'd ever want to do I glue my eye to the scope and I watch the horror show. The victor has finished landing useless futile blows on the vanquished one in the pen. She drops the blood drenched club and stands pleading with the ones who surround her. Then it happens, slowly and maliciously, like a dog playing with a gopher until it stops being entertaining. The change, faces stretching out in comic skew, arms elongating to meet the gate of legs buckled in the wrong direction. They descend on the victor like...like a pack of...god like a pack or wolves on a trapped bear cub.
I jerk away in reaction to the idea, my mouth opens wide and my eyes glass over, childhood fears are accessed as primordial racial fears grip hold in my guts. Small pieces of my sanity break off like icicles in a chill wind.
"Still want to go in guns blazing new fish"?
"More than ever dammit", I find my self saying with a reassuring confidence.
"Not tonight, tomorrow, this shit goes on nightly from what I can gather, I'm bringing in an old friend and I suggest you call one of yours".
We part ways and I find my self making the most embarrassing call of my life, David answers bleary with sleep as I start in with what I've learned and seen. Part of me expects him to burst out in laughter and part of me expects him to just hang up and change his number. I slip the W word for lack of any better explanation and his end goes dead.
I hear nothing and assume the worst, my hand going slowly towards the receiver when I hear his voice say "Am I my brother's keeper?"
"What"?
"Nothing James, listen I'm largely ignorant on the subject and my only contact isn't available sadly". "Best I can say is aim for the skull and do as much as you can". "That failing try fire, and destruction of the whole being". "I'd say steer clear from it altogether, but I doubt that's an option is it"?
"I'm afraid not David".
"Then I'll wish you best of luck James, and you'll drop me a line when you're safe yes"?
"Sure thing".
The conversation ends as strangely as it begins and when Flash calls me I'm just as vague. I beat him to the meeting place, I'm all wide brimmed hat and black matted .45s, the tactical gear fits nicely under the high waist pants and the square collar red shirt. I don't have a name just a concept, a twenties action hero like the once's I used to read in the old 20th century comics as a kid.
I wont wait for him, I'd like to but two more innocent people are herded into the pin and the hollering begins. They're all high and drunk, what ever they are they aren't running on a full tank and I'm a fucking V-12. The young girl lets out the squeal scream of a shock at the sight of remains in the pin as the cheap suit opposite her appears to be resigning himself to the "them or me mentality".
I can't wait I wont wait, they can add me to the fucking menu but I wont sit and watch, not this time, not this FUCKING TIME. I run in and I James lungs and with out me James couldn't breathe, but right now it doesn't matter because James is breathing sulfur and eating coal. The one closest takes one mag safe and a hot round to the head, there is nothing left above the neck and it gets the attention of everyone in the area.
I pinion my self between the girl and the suit with the club, whether by blind need or simple uncaring greed the moron ignores the fact that I've got pistols and comes forward, he leaves with a broken wrist and a broken nose, from then its the hunt and I don't have any hounds, in fact I've grown a fox tail in the way of a girl sixteen at most screaming and begging behind me as if I was the risen Jesus come to account for people's sins.
She's pinned to the side of a wooden building with the water flowing behind us now and I'm in front of her, one of them took a chunk out of my left arm and the tactical gear turned useless in it's teeth. They're backed off with a nice line of their buddies dead and dieing around them, some with torn clothes still attached to their bodies some still wearing "gray watch" jackets.
I'm getting blister hot and blotchy rash red as I realize I'm empty on one hand and five down out of a Ten plus One in the other, time running out on the clock and I've only got one ace in the hole, I hear a distant whirring coming closer and a growl some how deeper and far more metalic than the endless row of teeth and night red eyes before me.
One way or another, this ends at the river, I can feel a change and I'm wondering whether it starts in the teeth or in the gums, for the girl behind me, I'm willing to see. One way or the other. And justice for all...indeed.
American Werewolves: American Werewolves
Do you want excitement baby?
Do you want to take a ride?
You want some action baby
And you're not afraid to die
These scars won't last forever
Can vengeance make them heal?
If you give me your heart, baby
We can make it out of here
And now...they call us monsters
And now...they call us creeps
And all we ever wanted was
To make them scream
I've seen the devil, baby
I've seen him in your eyes
If you saw the world was ending
Would you be afraid to die?