Two weeks after the Dollar Flu hit: It’s dark outside, like, pitch black dark. The kind of dark when you open the front door to go outside and change your damn mind because you just shit yourself dark. Knuckles aimlessly walks the streets around this time without a care in the world. He takes a long pause as he gulps down the little bit of Jack Daniels from his bottle, then relieves himself next to a nearby sewer drain. As he stumbles ahead he sees a street light flickering in the middle of an intersection, he sees a body lying on the ground. He gets closer and notices the young woman on the ground is still breathing. He drops the empty bottle and rushes to her side, “Miss are you ok?” he asks while he checks for a pulse. Suddenly he feels the cold metal from the barrel of her gun digging into his rib cage, she smiles gleefully “LoMane, you done messed up now” she says laughing at him. “Wallet, clothes and shoes - Take them off now”. “Are you kidding me?” Knuckles asks “LoMane, you only gonna make it worse if you don’t shut your mouth. Didn’t anyone tell you it is Moose Season?” Knuckles very slowly starts to put his hands up regretting he ever stopped to help. Two years later in the DZ: Knuckles looks over at Moose as the group walks through the DZ and throws an energy bar at her. “Hey, you got to eat if you’re ever going to grow up”. “Man shut up, just because I have them corgi legs doesn’t mean I can’t whip you.” Knuckles laughs and replies back “Do I smell a challenge? Well, hold on a second let me get the baby oil and we can wrestle.” Moose snaps back “Oh like them Bitches say in that Cheerleader movie Bring it on!” EO has had enough of the banter and yells at the both of them “Will you two shut up?!” “Where are we going anyway, Inquiring Meese need to know” questioned Moose. “We are taking these two idiots to see Phoenix” “You mean we get to play with the Pigeon? Answers Moose joyfully. “Awe yeah” says Knuckles in agreement, “can’t wait to see my Kin! What the hell has he been doing anyway? Last I heard he built a roller skate rink in Donald Trump’s old building.” “I heard he put in a petting Zoo” comments Moose. EO just shakes his head as Torex tries to hold back his outburst of laughter. John looks over at Torex and asks “So, are these two always like this?” Torex still upset he has to be breathing the same air as John ignores him completely. As the group continues to walk Moose and knuckles show no end of their constant back and forth. Moose starts to feel tired and asks “EO, why the Hell are we not taking one of these damn cars? It’s not like they are coming back anytime soon.” EO looks over his shoulder “Can you hear that sound?” Moose listens intently Knuckles fires back “I don’t hear anything”. “Exactly” exclaims EO “No one uses a car in the DZ because on these quite ass streets an engine blasting through the neighborhood would paint a target for the whole damn DZ to come down us. Now shut the Hell up.” “LoMane” Moose says with half a smile to Knuckles “looks like someone forgot to eat his cheerios for breakfast”. EO again was bewildered at the level of nonsense. John came up to an abandoned electronics store a few feet ahead of the pack with Lamar and noticed something strange. It was a department store dummy dressed in an LMB outfit, it was positioned to look like it was peering out from the window to the building straight ahead. Moose sees the two of them staring at this dummy puzzled by its purpose. She walks up to the dummy and starts talking to it like a real person, “Hey, LoMane. Can you tell me where the nearest Dunkin donuts is, I needs a cup of that fresh Guatemalan coffee.” Knuckles joins in the conversation “Yeah, where the hell is Don Pedro and his Donkey? I need to know right now.” Before EO could raise his voice to tell them to shut up again, a single shot rang out. Everyone drops to the floor instantly except for Moose. Still standing there in shock John notices blood coming out the side of her arm. John reaches up and grabs her to pull her to safety, they go behind a concrete wall inside the store and John yells out “Anyone of you happen to be a medic?” He knew the answer was going to be no so he started to wrap the bullet wound with his scarf. Knuckles crawls along the sidewalk and makes his way into the building “You are doing it wrong” he tells John in almost a peculiar calm fashion. He unwraps the scarf and uses it as a tourniquet above the bullet wound to stop the bleeding. He pulls out a knife, pops open a bottle of vodka he had been carrying in his pack and cleans the blade. “This is going to sting a little, drink some of this”. Before Moose had a chance to finish her drink Knuckles uses the knife to examine the wound and how bad it was, he soon realizes the bullet grazed her arm pretty bad but no real damage could be seen. He wrapped up the wound and told her to apply pressure. “Where did that shot come from?” asked Torex. “I don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t want to stick around to find out” yells EO. So they all pile into the electronic store safe from the outside for now. John looks at Knuckles still impressed with what he just witnessed, he asked him “Where did you learn that?” Knuckles looks up and confesses to the group “Columbia Med School, class of 2002. Before the dollar flu hit I was an ER Surgeon at Mt. Sinai Hospital. I lost everything and everyone I ever loved during that time, so I decided I was going to live out the rest of my time doing whatever I wanted to do until someone put a bullet in me.” The whole group was stunned, but most of all Moose was especially shocked. “LoMane who are you?” “I’m just me” replied Knuckles. The interior door to the back room of the electronics door bursts open suddenly and two other former agents come through with weapons drawn. EO and Torex immediately bear down the sights of their weapons ready to shoot. John has his pistol aimed right for one of their heads. The two men lower their weapons and try to ease the situation. “Hey guys, no need to get all out of control here. I see you found my dummy.” He looks down at Moose “Sorry he didn’t do a great job protecting you”. John began lowering his weapon when EO barks out “no one lower your weapon, don’t trust a damn thing out of these two.” Lamar shaking from the rush of adrenaline asks “EO, you know these guys”. “Yeah.” He says reluctantly, his sights still trained on the both of them. “Let me introduce myself” the front man says “My name is Colin and this is my trusted right hand man Dryce”.
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