The Brothers Crunk (6 page)

“
Bye, Rey.”

The night gulps.

THIRTEEN

THE RED RAIN

IT is standing over me, breathing down my neck. There is evil in ITs eyes, but it’s not for me. The red rain splashes against and runs down ITs purple skin in tiny streams. It’s almost beautiful.

The chime of a bell tower echoes in the distance. The illuminated clock on the outside of the tower is clearly visible, even through the rain. A quarter till midnight.

IT sees the clock. There is worry in ITs eyes, but it’s not over me. There is a white glow coming out from ITs chest. Out from the glow comes a voice.

Go. Now. Run.

IT turns away from me.

Go. Now. Run.

IT goes. It runs.

Go.

But somehow I can still . . .

Now.

 
. . .hear ITs voice.

Run.

FOURTEEN

THE GRAVE OF THE ELDER

Vandenboom sits in the middle of the desert, waiting. The quad-bike resting beneath him rumbles and growls, eliminating the silence the desert usually keeps. Spiked in the sand before him are four shovels. The sand beside the shovels is stained with a splash of red paint. It marks a grave. The grave of an ancient Edokko elder.

There is a faint thunder in the distance. Vandenboom turns the key in the ignition and kills the motor.

They’re here.

● ● ●

Reynold awakens, not knowing how much time has passed since his fall. All he knows is that it is now daylight and Vandenboom is gone. In fact, the piles of car parts are gone as well. He jumps to his feet, staggering backwards. The blow to the head still has him a little off-kilter.

Pete still sits in the front seat of the blue Caddy. His meat is now a darkened brown from the heat. He smells delicious. Reynold makes his way over to the Caddy.

“
It’s ’bout fucking time, man! Purple took off hours ago!” Pete screams. Reynold examines Pete. He’s a bit crispy. “What’s that shit on your face there?”

Reynold touches his face. Red crust has hardened around his eye. He wipes it clean from his face.

“
Vandenboom,” Reynold says.

“
What?”

“
Purple’s name is Vandenboom. How long have I been out?” Reynold tears a bit of jerky from Pete’s lower half.

“
Excuse me? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I need that!”

“
Petey Boy, I’m facking starved!” Reynold pops the chunk into his mouth. “Oh god, Pete, you taste awful.”

“
Yeah, yeah. Well, you’ve been out for a few days. I can’t be exact. I’ve lost count.”

“
A few days?! Really? No wonder I feel like shit.”

“
What the hell happened to you anyway?”

“
It spoke to me, Pete! Only it wasn’t Vandenboom that spoke to me, it was Divey.”

“
Divey? Ha, you’ve lost it, kid! Divey’s a goner. You saw what that bastich did to him. He ripped him apart!”

“
I swear it, Pete, it was Divey. No mistaking it.” Reynold rips off another chunk of Pete’s meat. “Last one, I promise.”

“
Did you hear him before or after you whacked your skull?”

“
Both.”

“
. . .”

“
Don’t you at least want to know what he told me?”

“
Oh, do tell . . .” Pete sighs.

“
He told me to go home. That the road ahead was too dangerous. He said that he could take care of himself.”

“
Great! Then let’s be on our way.”

“
But I know how to save him.”

“
Oh, you can’t save yourself.”

“
No, really, I know. It’s in ’ere.” Reynold points to his chest. “Divey is in that thing’s . . . chestal area.”

“
Chestal area?”

“
You know, right in the middle of everythin’. All we have to do is rip him out.”

“
And how do you know this?”

“
It was in a dream.”

“
Rey, let’s go home.”

“
Fack that, I’m gonna go rescue my brother.”

“
Look man, you’ve been out in the sun too long. You’re stressed. You just lost a loved one. You’re dehydrated, hungry, weak, and not to mention, you just fucking bumped your head and recently came out of a short coma. You physically aren’t able to handle taking that thing down!”

“
I feel fine, Pete, really.”

“
Fine? Really, you’re fine? You’re talking to a fucking pile of meat!”

“
I’m leaving. You don’t have to come with me.”

Pete looks around. “What else am I supposed to do? Rot in this piece of shit car, alone? Fuck man, I guess I don’t really have a choice.”

“
Well, come on then. We need to find transportation.” Reynold scoops Pete up in his arms.

● ● ●

The dust kicks up and hides all traces of the sun as the Damned Dirt Devils ride in.

VEGA

Vega has green skin and a yellow X painted over his left eye. He is tall and slender—great for getting into those hard to reach places. He is a skilled swordsman as well as a mixed martial artist. He drives a yellow dragster with the engine exposed and loves Granny Smith apples.

KREBB

The red-skinned Krebb stands about six feet tall and nearly just as wide. He has a receding hairline and his mane grows like fire all around his face, except for his chin, which is totally hairless. He likes to smoke thick cigars and finger his weapon of choice, the KREBBOOM—a large gun that resembles a vegetable blender and requires no ammo. Simply load any object into the chamber and, with the pull of the trigger, the object is cloned and sent hurling through the target’s skull at a bone-shattering speed. His ride is an old police car from the 1930s with a souped up engine and flames painted across the front and side panels. Justice will be served.

GLUUM

Gluum is an arachnid in a humanoid body. She has long white hair, black skin, and her hands sparkle like the night sky. She literally has the universe in her hands. She rides a shiny chrome bike with metal wheels and lets her fingers do most of the talking.

T-DAKK

T-Dakk suffers from a rare disorder that has rendered his legs useless. But what he lacks in physical ability, he makes up with mental strength. T-Dakk is head of weapons command. He has engineered, constructed, and perfected over thirty-eight different weapons, including the KREBBOOM. T-Dakk rides around in a heavy duty murderball wheelchair and drives an old Japanese-style van that has been modified to accommodate his every need.

Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils leave their rides and crowd around the grave of the ancient elder. The Damned Dirt Devils drop to their knees and bow before the grave. Vandenboom hoists the shovels out of the dirt and tosses them to the ground.

“
Dig.”

FIFTEEN

DOOM MAGNETIC

“
You just have to trust me!” Reynold yells at Pete. “This is the only way we’re going to get out of here in time!”

“
The shit I do for you, kid,” Pete sighs. A tightly tied black fishing net is wrapped around him.

“
It’ll be fine. I’ll be over here waiting, just be still and quiet, okay?”

“
Okay, okay. Go already.”

Reynold runs back behind one of the scrap heaps and picks out a thin strip of paper from the rubbish. He places it between his thumbs, cups his hands together, and blows through it. A high-pitched squawk emanates and echoes through the heap. After a few calls, he is finally successful. An ostrich pokes its head out from behind one of the junk stacks, catching a whiff of its dinner. It eyes Pete carefully for several moments, before advancing. Once it becomes brave enough to step out, Reynold sneaks up behind it and rings the metal rim he’d removed from the fishing net around its head and neck. He leaps up onto its back, snatching up Pete in the process. The ostrich rears back and squawks with fury.

“
Ha! We did it!” Reynold yells. He smacks the bird’s arse and leads it to follow the deep tire tracks imprinted in the sand. “Divey, here we come, brother!”

● ● ●

“
I hit something boss!” Krebb yells from down deep in the grave. He thrusts the shovel beneath the casket and pries it loose from the earth’s grasp. The Damned Dirt Devils haul the coffin out of the grave and drop it on the hot sand. Krebb takes his shovel and cracks into the wooden top. He tosses the shovel aside and begins to pry back the wooden slats, snapping them off in pieces until the casket is completely open. They all cover their noses and mouths as the stench of decay pollutes the air around them.

The body inside is headless and draped in a blood-stained kimono. Buried along with it are two items, a large wooden staff and a cracked cue-ball. Krebb picks up the cue-ball.

“
Holy shit, boss! It’s his fucking eye!” he yells, showing it to the others. “Ha, to think that I’m holding Master Qoser’s cue-ball eye in my hands!” The others want to hold it too, but Krebb refuses to share.

“
Out of my way . . .” Vandenboom orders, pushing Krebb aside. He picks up a shovel and hoists it high above his head—the blade end shimmers in the sunlight. He brings the blade down with such force that it severs Qoser’s right arm just below the elbow. He picks up the arm. Its skin has the texture of a raisin. A smile forms at the corner of his mouth.

“
Ready to go home, Devils?!” he shouts. The Devils throw their fists into the air and cheer. Vandenboom spreads his legs and crouches into the same position he had always seen Qoser in, just before he would tear into the Doom Magnetic. The Doom Magnetic is a void in time and space that allows one to travel anywhere, any place in an instant. Vandenboom bends the fingers down and straightens the pinky finger out, again, just as Qoser had always done.

“
Brace yourselves,” he warns, howling as he slowly rips into the Doom Magnetic. But to his surprise, nothing happens. He tries it again . . . and again. Still nothing.

“
FUCK!” He hurls the arm into the air. He jumps down on Qoser’s corpse, grabs it by the collar of his kimono, and begins shouting, cursing at it.

“
Uh, boss?” T-Dakk says.

“
WHAT?!” Vandenboom shouts, dropping Qoser back down into his casket.

“
Check it out . . .” T-Dakk points. About twenty feet in the distance floats Qoser’s hand.

They all run out to examine this oddity. The pinky is missing completely. It has pierced through the Doom Magnetic and is now stuck in the air like a dart in a dartboard. Vandenboom grabs the floating forearm and pulls it down. In an instant, the Doom Magnetic tears open and a powerful vacuum begins to suck in everything in sight.