Excerpt three

from Jack's Inferno, chapter four

Surrounded by glue-huffers, knuckle-draggers, and mouth-breathers. We size up the group. I didn't catch any introductions so I'll just address them by their weapons.

I peg Monkey Wrench as the alpha male, possibly with a GED. That would make him the smart one. He'll be trickier to outwit than the others. He seems to call the shots and make the moves.

Shovel Thug is a long-haired metal-head with a gnarly beard. He's wiry, and the tallest of the pack by at least half a foot. He'll have the best reach in a fight. He's wearing spiked armbands and a Danzig shirt. He could prove dangerous.

Chain Whip is short and skinny. He's shirtless and covered in scars and tattoos. He's twitchy and more animated than the others. He's got a sadistic grin and a crazy look in his eyes. He may not be the biggest or strongest of the tribe, but there's a taint of madness about him. Never drop your guard around a psychopath.

The brat with the bat looks about sixteen years old. Frail child in baggy clothes. Not an issue. I'm going to name him Short Stop.

Knuckleduster has a build like a brick wall and looks like a circus strongman. He's got a shaved head and a wicked handlebar mustache. He's dressed in a prison jumpsuit. Definitely the bruiser in the group; one to stay clear of.

Tire Iron is medium build and average height. He seems calm and calculated. Other than that he's tricky to read. Might be a wild card in a melee.

I don't like our chances in a 6-on-2 straight fight. Maybe I'll think of something before the s**t-kicker blitzkrieg is unleashed upon us. First we have to meet the king, apparently.

They lead us through a rusty iron gate. A crookedly hung sign reads KEEP OUT MOTHER FUCKERS. Every trailer in the lot is on fire. Not spreading fire, just casual, continuous infernos. Almost decorative.

Mangled pit bulls and dirty children loiter in every yard. Tricycles and empty beer cans rest on a layer of dirt and broken glass. Cigarette butts litter the ground like spent confetti. A grease monkey working on a Firebird studies us as we pass. A drunk pregnant girl blows a kiss. The trucker winks back. A five year old throws rocks at us. There's a guy in a lawn chair being tattooed. He stares at us and spits.

We stop in front of a mountain of burning tires. It's a backwoods monument for lowbrow heathens. The stench could make eyes bleed. Black smoke doesn't just cover the sky, it is the sky. It crawls inside your lungs and unpacks a suitcase.

Faces look warped and sinister in the unholy glow of the strange greenish flames. Make that color-shifting flames. Now it's bright blue, now a deep crimson violet. White trash Christmas tree of the Gods. The infernal lightshow swims around inside my skull like a Technicolor peyote dream. Starting to get light-headed from the fumes.

Short Stop lights a smoke and takes a drag, coughing. Monkey Wrench smacks him in the back of the head and steals the cigarette for himself ("thanks, kid"). He tosses aside a few tires at the bottom of the pile to reveal an iron door. He raps on the door three times with the wrench. A narrow slit opens with a quick loud scrape. A pair of eyes scans him and a gruff voice utters, "State your business!" from behind the locked door.

"We need to see Ricky," Monkey Wrench answers back.

"No audience with the king today. Come back tomorrow." The narrow opening slams shut.

"D****t, just let us in! This is important!"

The slot reopens. "Come back tomorrow." The slot closes again.

"Tell him we got two hogs that need slaughterin'!" Chain Whip yells with a little too much enthusiasm.

Open slot. "Butcher ain't here. Out drinkin' with the Hangman." Closed slot.

"Look, it's really simple," Monkey Wrench tries again, "We've got a fugitive and a trespasser that need a fair trial...and a severe a*s-beating. So just let us in."

Open. "No trials today. Come back tomorrow." Closed.

"Aw c'mon!" Shovel Thug gripes. "But the cable's out! What are we supposed to do all day?!"

Monkey Wrench becomes pensive for a moment, then in a somber voice asks, "It's the queen, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Is she drunk?"

"Enormously."

"Just let us in. I'll calm her down."

The door swings open. The hinges squeal.

The hallway is a twisting patchwork of hollowed-out school buses and scraps of aluminum crudely welded together. The coiling downward slant is unlit aside from the lantern of the gatekeeper. We follow him and the others down the warped path, trying to keep our balance on the skewed panels of the floor.

Not quite sure what to expect. Rats scurry away from the light. Out of the corner of my eye I see a possum smoking a cigarette. Don't ask.

There's torchlight illuminating what we will refer to as the courtyard...or the throne room...or whatever the hell these drunken dime-store architects want to call it. It's a sprawling orgy of crippled double-wides with delusions of grandeur. Splayed open walls have been ripped into sections, then haphazardly reconnected to form massive chambers with vaulted ceilings. A monument to poor craftsmanship and instability. Only through the perpetual intervention of nail-guns and duct tape is the structure still intact. Maybe a tornado god lives here, who knows.

His highness, King Ricky. Mid to late forties, long hair, tattoos and a beer gut. Looks like an old biker, burned out from too many years of drugs and booze. His throne is a roadside recliner pulled from the trash heap. His cardboard crown is origami with a beer case. He drinks cheap bourbon straight from the bottle and smokes a joint from a roach clip.

There's a woman beside him, swaying. Bitching and moaning. Mumbling and staggering. Occasionally nodding out. The chamber echoes with half-articulated shouts and incomprehensible accusations. Unrelenting verbal abuse pours out of her throat--obscenities seamlessly melded with gibberish in an invented language that will never be translated. A whiskey-breath banshee with a face like a mummy. She sucks in dignity like a vortex and spits out soul-wrenching shame in its place. We all feel it, and it leaves us weak.

The king takes another drink.

The gatekeeper lets out a conspicuous cough to signal our presence. The queen, still rambling, pays no mind. Ricky nods and says, "She ain't gonna shut up, you might as well just talk over her."

Author's Note

Originally posted as a single line for the one sentence story contest, but screw it...here's the whole rant in context.

Reviews

[scatterbrain]

... roarke really isn't giving much help...
(read my review on Excerpt 4 before reading this one)

"Unrelenting verbal abuse pours out of her throat--obscenities seamlessly melded with gibberish in an invented language that will never be translated."

this is your best sentence, but it's also the "weakest" in terms of a sneak-peek/excerpt. it lacks everything. but i'll edit it none-the-less... it's a mouthful.

Unrelenting(1) verbal abuse pours out of her throat--obscenities seamlessly melded(2) with gibberish in an invented language that will never be translated(3).
1: 'unrelenting' can be deleted. "verbal abuse pours out of her throat" implies that he is being relentless.
2: obscenities seamlessly melded--love it
3: this last third is almost useless. i like it, but it doesn't progress anything. i'm afraid that's going to be something i see in your story... some wonderful story-telling, but little progression. i hope to be proved wrong :)

[roarke]

hahahahahaa, I see you've met the ex..... Trouble was, it sounded like plain english, but meant total gibberish.... I gave up trying to translate a year in.... now THAT's a story.