The Brothers Crunk

Published by Grindhouse Press

POB 292644

Dayton, OH 45429

www.grindhousepress.com

The Brothers Crunk

Grindhouse Press #004

ISBN-13: 978-0-9826281-7-1

ISBN-10: 098262817X

Copyright © 2010 by William Pauley III. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction.

Cover art and design copyright © 2010 by Brandon Duncan

www.corporatedemon.com

Interior artwork copyright © 2010 by Megan Hansen

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.

Also by William Pauley III

Demolition Ya-Ya
(forthcoming)

Doom Magnetic!

If You Don’t Sleep, You Don’t Dream

Mr. Malin and the Night

This book is dedicated to Gordan K. Smith

The author would also like to thank Mingua Beef Jerky and Cherry Coke. Without them, this book never would have been possible.

THE

BROTHERS

CRUNK

An

8-Bit

Fack-it-All

Adventure

in

2D

ONE

SOMEWHERE IN THE DESERT . . .

The taste of electricity hangs in the air.

A thick blanket of darkness rolls over the hot desert sky. The sand begins to cool in an instant—cracks and sizzles. Steam puffs out of the ground in giant belches.

A faint hum resonates in the distance. The sound of a television being turned on. The TV is bright purple with yellow dials and is half-buried in the sand. Slowly, an image appears on the screen. It is the image of a large, powerfully built creature with long white fangs hanging like daggers from the lower half of his face. One of his eyes is squinting. The other is wide, irisless, and wrapped loosely with a thousand thin black rings, spinning around his eye in an entrancing manner, as if to hypnotize. In a strange and distorted voice, he begins to cackle and scream.

“
HEH-H-H-GAH GAH GAHH! D-D-DEVIL’S OF-F-F T-THE D-D-D-DIRT, B-B-B-B-BECOMMEE OONNEE-E W-WITH M-M-MEE!” the beast on the television cries—his voice sounding like a squirrel’s with throat cancer.

“
V-V-VANDENBOOM!”

The television speakers crackle and fuzz as the audio trim exceeds its limit. The feed suddenly cuts to black. The desert is again swallowed by darkness.

Ten feet away, half-buried beneath the cool desert sand, the eyes of a mutilated cyborg carcass begin to glow a sinister red.

TWO

BOOM CLICK CLICK

Divey Crunk wriggles his fingers through a spaghetti mess of wires, examining each of them closely before tossing them back into the chaos. His goggles are dark and fogged from the perspiration pouring down his forehead. He wipes the backhand of his glove along his hairline and again digs into the knot-ball of wires.

“
Damnit, Divey, this is taking too long! I’m out, man! I’m facking out!” says a tall man with a thick Cockney accent.

“
Shut your goddamn mouth, Reynold, and watch the door! I’m telling you, it won’t take but a minute to solder. I just have to find the right facking wire first. If I have to . . .” His words trail off into indecipherable mumbles.

Reynold walks to the back door of the van, peeks out the window, and anxiously bobs up and down, as if holding back a river of piss.

“
Do you mind? You’re breaking my facking concentration!”

“
I can’t help it. This sneaking around business always gets me heart a thumping.” Reynold tries to calm his nerves. He holds his breath. Unconsciously, he begins to swing his hips, doing his piss dance again. Divey slams his toolbox against the metal floor of the van and clutches his skull with both hands. The vein in the middle of his forehead is throbbing in anger.

“
You know, I think I’m going to get a bit of fresh air. Yeah, that’s what I need. It’s getting a tad bit stuffy in ’ere.” Divey doesn’t move. “Yeah . . . so, ah, well . . . I guess I’ll just beat on the side of the van if I see him coming, yeah?” Divey grumbles. Reynold nods and hops out of the van.

The concrete is wet and glistening like a blanket of diamonds underneath the ginger glow of the streetlamp. The van sits in an otherwise empty parking lot, outside a minor league baseball stadium. The air is clean, fresh, as it always is after a good rain. He takes a deep breath and wipes his finger along the edge of the side glass window. The yellow paint of the van is beginning to chip away, revealing the original egg shell white underneath. The words, ‘BRACKFAS BURRITOS ¥99’ are written in giant red lettering across the side panels and doors.

A flitter of light reflecting off a small metal object lying on the ground catches the corner of his eye. He walks over to it and picks it up. It is a small round coin with Japanese lettering on either side.

“
Ha, fancy that . . . a 500 yen piece! I guess it’s me lucky day.” Reynold bites the coin and buries it in his front pocket.

“
Whatchu got there?” a man’s voice asks from the darkness—deep and gravelly.
Pete
. Reynold’s nerves jump.

“
Ah, heya there, Pete . . . I just found me a bloody 500 yen piece, just lying ’ere on the pavement. Imagine that, huh?” There is a nervous quiver in his voice. He slowly backs toward the van. Pete steps out of the shadows, revealing three hundred and forty-nine pounds of pure American meat tightly tucked into a pair of black sweatpants and a red Members Only jacket—no shirt.

“
Heh, yeah, imagine that . . .” Pete lights up a fag. “Go get your brother, we’ll have one last smoke together.” Reynold nods his head and jumps in the back of the van.

“
Christ, Divey, put that shit away! Pete’s outside!”

“
Just in time, too . . .” Divey tosses a screwdriver in his toolbox. He turns around quickly and aims an orange plastic gun directly at a remote sensor installed in Reynold’s right eye socket. The gun he is holding is a 1984 model Nintendo Zapper.

“
Have you lost your facking mind?!” Reynold says, cupping his hands over the sensor.

“
Relax, the gun is rigged to go off on the third pull of the trigger. All we have to do is get Pete to go last.”

“
And you’re sure you fixed the generator too, right?”

“
Of course I fixed the generator, what kind of dumb-arse bloke do you take me for?” Divey takes off his gloves, pulls a wooden pipe out of his front shirt pocket, and smiles. “Let’s smoke, brother.”

Divey stuffs the plastic gun into the waistband of his jeans and hops out onto the pavement.

“
Hey there, Pete . . . no luck I see,” Divey says as he lights his pipe.

“
No . . . no luck.” Pete takes a long draw from his fag and exhales for what seems like an entire minute. Reynold hops out of the van, his cigarette already lit.