Writing Prompt Boot Camp, Day 13

Breaking Down

The tachometer was pegged to the redline, somewhere around seven thousand RPM. The engine couldn’t take much more, despite the new valve seals and a thorough lube job, this POS was gonna shit the bed sooner rather than later.

“Damn,” Hustle said under their breath.

“Damn what? Damn what, H?” Chain yelled from the passenger seat.

Chain was Hustle’s partner in crime and occasional lover. Chain was also bug-fuck nuts, and it had been almost a week since Chain had any meds. Hustle knew of one last spot where they could score some more. But they had to get there fast.

“Come on come on come on come on,” Hustle muttered. This mantra would do nothing to breathe extra life into the dying engine, but it calmed their mind just enough to focus on the road ahead. And there were still bandits about, they had to keep their eyes peeled for those.

“We’re not gonna make it, H. We’re not gonna make it. Just open the door and shove me out! Shove me out, dude! Maybe I’ll hit my head and it’ll all be over –“

“Shut up! I told you to shut up about that shit!” Hustle yelled back at Chain. Sometimes this was a way to calm them down and buy a few minutes of peace. Not today, of course. When Chain was this far out from their last dose, nothing was going to calm them down.

“Just shove me out the car, H. I don’t wanna be a burden on you anymore,” Chain wailed.

“You better secure that shit,” Hustle barked back. “Don’t fuckin’ cry on me, don’t you fuckin’ dare!”

Chain shut up and they stopped crying. They remained shut up until they hit the hidden spike strip.

The passenger side tires, both of them, exploded with sharp bangs, one after the other. Immediately the car canted to the right, pulling them off the road and into a shallow ditch. Hustler pulled on the steering wheel in an attempt to keep them on the road. But that effort was soon negated by the second hidden spike strip that took out their two remaining tires.

The car came to a lurching, screeching halt. The engine revved past redline, coughed and finally died. Chain started crying again.

Hustler pushed back from the steering wheel and looked through the windshield to see where they had ended up. The old crack in the lower left corner had grown considerably, almost splitting the windshield on the diagonal and obscuring their view. Hustler released their seatbelt, leaned forward, and punched the windshield right on the crack. The glass shattered into a million sharp cubes, spraying both Hustler and Chain. Hustler cursed, Chain just kept crying.

Now that there was no windshield, Hustler saw an old highway sign on the side of the road. It was splotched over in moss and pocked with bullet holes, but the letters were still legible: Zig Zag 1.

“We almost made it, Chain,” Hustler sighed. “I’m sorry.” Tears leaked down Hustler’s cheeks.

The bandits emerged from the woods on either side of the road.

“All right all right!” said one of the scraggly men who stood on the road on the passenger side of the car. “You two know the drill! Give us your –”

The man stopped his speech and bent over, trying to get a better look inside the car.

“No shit! No SHIT!” the man exclaimed. “Is that you, Hustler? For real? Goddamn! Thought I’d never see your ugly ass face ever again!”

“Likewise,” Hustler answered. “I was hoping to never see yours!”

“Aw, come on man,” the man said in a soft tone. “You don’t gotta be like that! I ain’t gonna hurt ya none! You know that!” The man motioned at his compatriots, who numbered six, to back away from the car. They did, slowly.

“Just come on out and we’ll do this neighborly,” the man said in an even softer tone.

“You promise not to hurt us?” Hustler asked. He knew that trusting this man, whose road name was High Rock Rick, was crazy. But they were outmanned and probably outgunned, or out-cross bowed or some shit. There was no way he could take them all out before either of them were seriously hurt. Or worse.

“Ok, we’re comin’ out,” Hustler said. “Just gimme a minute to talk to my friend here, ok?”

“Take your time, brother,” High Rock Rick said with a smile. “Take your time.” High Rock Rick backed away from the car and joined the rest of his crew who were all together on the passenger side of  the car.

“Chain? Chain, come on. We gotta move,” Hustler said, caressing their dirty cheek.

Sometime between the car coming to a stop and their conversation with High Rock Rick, Chain had actually fallen asleep. Hustler shook them and their eyes snapped open.

“Did we make it, H?”

“No babe, I’m sorry. And now we gotta get out of the car before my dickhead brother and his friends rough us up just for kicks.”

“Ricky’s out there? Are you serious?” Chain sat up in the seat and loomed over Hustler. The change in posture startled Hustler, and they leaned away from Chain.

“Yeah, he’s out there,” Hustler said evenly. “But he’s not our problem. So let’s just get our shit and get out before – “

The last thing Hustler saw before everything went to shit was Chain’s eyes filling up with blood.

“Oh, no, Chain, don’t –”

But Chain shoved Hustler down into the footwell beneath the steering wheel and opened their door.

“Whoa there, partner,” High Rock Rick said as he beheld his brother’s passenger. “Like I was telling my brother I don’t want – “

“Hustler’s not your brother, asshole!” Chain grunted.

Chain opened their mouth.

“What the fuck is that???” one of High Rock Rick’s crew yelled in terror. He kept on screaming.

Chain’s gaze fell on the dirty screaming young man and something red and sharp streaked out of Chain’s gaping mouth and struck the young man in the throat. The scream was cut off as whatever had emerged from Chain burrowed its way through the young man’s throat and out the back of his neck. The sound of vertebrae cracking apart like walnuts replaced the young man’s screams.

Chain whipped the red extension back and forth a few times before recalling it back into their awaiting mouth. The young man collapsed to his knees, the shock enough to pop his head off what remained of his neck. It struck the pavement a second after the rest of the body.

“So that’s why they call you Chain,” High Rock Rick said in a voice so low that only one of his remaining crew heard him.

Two of the crew ran screaming into the woods, two others drew pistols from the waistbands of their filthy jeans, and High Rock Rick just stood there, slack-jawed in horror. Chain did not give any of the others time to consider their actions. They turned to one of the pistol wielders, opened their mouth, and the red chain shot out and struck the dirty man dead center in his chest. The impact made the man drop the pistol as he began to scream. Ribs broke, blood poured out of hole in his chest, and once again Chain shook the man back and forth like a dog with a toy. Chain recalled their chain, and the man collapsed beside his younger, headless accomplice.

The other man with a pistol got off one shot, but it went high wide and handsome due to the impact of the knife that was now lodged in the front of his left shoulder. He began to scream, but this was quickly cut off by another shot, this one producing a third eye in the center of his forehead. He collapsed onto the road.

Both High Rock Rick and Chain turned to look at Hustler, standing on the other side of the car. Their arm was resting on the roof of the car; their own pistol clutched in their hand. Smoke curled lazily up from the end of the barrel.

Chain walked over to High Rock Rick, seized him under his armpits, and slammed him down on the road. All the air escaped High Rock Rick in a loud WHUFF! Chain opened their mouth one more time, but Hustler yelled “NO!” Chain’s mouth closed.

Hustler walked over to Chain and held them close.

“Are you ok?” Hustler asked.

“Yeah, but I’m tired,” Chain responded in a sad voice.

“Go back to the car and sit down for a minute and catch your breath. We’ll have to move soon,” Hustler said gently. Chain did as they were told.

“That ain’t right,” High Rock Rick said as Hustler turned to him.

“You shouldn’t have called me ‘brother’,” Hustler said. “You know how they hate that.”

“You two ain’t right!” High Rock Rick said, trying to reclaim some of his earlier cool.

“Maybe so,” Hustler said, “but now you know the drill. Hand over the keys.”

High Rock Rick looked into the face of his brother – no, his sister? His non-binary? He shook his head in weariness and disgust.

“Mama said you killed her that day when you came home and came out to us,” High Rock Rick said.

“Yeah, well,” Hustler said with a sigh. “She could have tried acceptance and compassion instead of bigotry. That’s what killed her, Ricky. It almost killed you today.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ricky said as he fished his keys out of his jacket pocket. He handed them to Hustler.

“Where’s the truck?”  Ricky nodded to the woods where they came from.

“’bout a mile that way,” Ricky said.

“Ok then,” Hustler said.

They stood and went back to their dead POS. They collected Chain and together they followed the trail into the woods.

Chain got their meds, after all.