ACT TWO: LIVING ON A PRAYER
CHAPTER NINE: INTENSE MEASURES
12:17 AM...
After a couple hours of what he would call stop and go traffic, Jon had finally reached the zoo. It was fairly quiet... A little too quiet... But that's how things were around here. Too quiet, or loud from the screams of the innocent. Either was satisfying.
Goody goody panty-shots, just in time.
A rather belligerent-looking Black man didn't appear to notice Jon. He was content with looking off to the left at the restroom, as if it was the object of his great desire. His dream come true. Thankfully, Jon's vision was used to the dark, and he had adapted quite quickly due to the dark time he spent in prison cells. Brazenly, Jon simply walked up behind the man, and tapped him on the shoulder. As he turned around, he palm healed the man in the Adam's apple, causing the man to drop his machete, gasp and collapse on the floor.
"Well howdy there, stranger!" Jon said mockingly. "Can y'all tell me what's all up in this hizzy?" Jon paused and chuckled. "Hoo-wee! I'm totally like, jiving, mon amie!"
The man tried to slowly inch himself away from Jon.
"Fuck you! Do what you gotta do, asshole!
"Now wait just a cotton picking minute." Jon let out a loud laugh. "Hahaha! Cotton picking... Heh... I crack me up, big time. Anyways, I don't take orders from Negro-types, such as yourself. I'm still wondering how they let you out of the monkey house- probation, maybe?"
Jon languidly drew his pistol from his pocket, and placed the barrel right on the Wardog's lower lip.
Jon smiled. "So lose the 'tude, lest I cap yo' fatass, black-ass lip. I've got the advantage here, buddy- I can't miss from a mile away with a target like that."
The Wardog smiled, obviously knowing he was going to die.
"We are supposed to kill two mothas who we-"
"Wait... Back up to the two mothers... Two people, you're supposed to hunt, right? Or were you just talking me up with your blackanese?"
"Ha ha ha- real funny ASSHOLE."
Jon got excited.
I could hunt those pricks down myself.. Or even better! Ka-booyah!
"Go on, sir. Continue."
"We're supposed to kill to kill two bastards as they try to rescue a girl we have tied up in the-"
"Hold up again, G Funk Money- or whatever your 'homies' call you... A girl, you say?"
"You got a cock in your ear or something?"
"Cute. But what a grand night this will turn out to be!"
Before he could think, he felt a sudden rush between his legs.
If she's hot... I know what I must do...
"Go on..."
"That's it, fucker. We're all over the place. Kill me if you want, but you ain't making it out of here alive, asshole."
"Sounds like a reg'lar jam-boh-ree! Well... Since I'm in such a good mood, I guess I'll give you a ten second head start to get out of my sight... The surroundings are in your favor, what with it being night and all."
Jon lowered his weapon, and shrugged. The Wardoog stood up and tilted his head in confusion.
"...Thanks, I guess..."
"One..."The Wardog turned to run, but instantly felt pain in his left kneecap. Oddly enough, right after he heard the familiar sound of cracking gunpowder. The round had, naturally, spiraled out of the weapon's barrel at some nine-hundred feet per second, and found home in the man's leg. It soon decided, however, that this property was unfit, and therefore tumbled about while taking the liberty to shatter the bone more or less completely, and emerge from the other side in a shredded exit wound. The Wardog fell to the ground in pain, and was screaming various obscenities while clutching his new injury with both hands, rolling about like a baby on fire.
"You see, I failed school, mon-amie... So I only know two numbers... One and Ten... So that means: 'Ten'. Oh, and do disregard the fact that I used the world 'two' there, m'kay good buddy?"
Jon pocketed his smoking pistol, drew his switchblade, and slowly walked over to the helpless man.
On the other side of the zoo, Vincent and Hiro stopped.
"Did you hear that?" Vincent asked.
"Sounded like a gunshot..."
"Just great... They have fucking guns..."
Hiro didn't know what to think of the guy... Sure, he was a convict, so his first logical reaction was to not trust him.
On the other hand, this guy may be able to help me bring this fucker down... With McNeil on my side, I should be able to get a warrant for his arrest in a few days... Shit, if I live that long...
Vincent tended to do most of the work, with Hiro sitting on the sidelines, muttering in disgust at the horrible acts of violence Vincent was dishing out on the various psychopaths that decided to call the zoo their home. In the past fifteen minutes, they had run into three. Sadly, none of them were carrying anything special aside from cigarettes, drugs, and other odds and ends that would help them the slightest in surviving the night.
As they turned the corner, they noticed there was a man attempting to blend into his surroundings with camouflage. Thankfully, it appeared the man wasn't aware of constantly looking from the left to right like a security camera, and was concentrating all of his attention on a little door off some twenty feet away.
Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out the blue grocery bag they had found only moments earlier, and quietly approached the man. Hiro knew that if he even made the slightest noise, the two of them would be dead.
Right as they reached the man, Vincent raised the bag up and pulled it over his head. The man tried to scream, but it was muffled by the plastic entering his mouth and slowly suffocating him. Vincent tightened the bag, and quickly tied the ends of it in a knot before spinning the man around. The clang of metal hitting concrete filled the area as the man's machete hit the floor and bounced some feet away.
To Hiro's horror, Vincent began to beat the man, hitting him in the face over and over again before throwing the man to the floor, and curb stomping him.
"Jesus fucking Christ!" Hiro exclaimed. "What the FUCK is wrong with you?!"
Vincent glared at Hiro, looking slightly shocked at Hiro's protests.
"What? What the fuck did I do?"
"What the fuck did you do?! You beat the man and curb stomped him!"
"He had to die quick! Suffocating him would have taken to long. His cheery buddies could have shown up in that time!"
"You didn't have to beat him and curb stomp him you fucking psycho!"
Vincent swung at Hiro, hitting him just below the left eye, spinning him around and sending him to the floor.
"Don't you ever fucking call me psycho, you hear me?!"
Enraged, Hiro didn't bother standing up. Instead, he grabbed the chain linking them together, and pulled on it hard causing Vincent to fall, smacking his head hard on the concrete. He groaned in pain.
"Fucking asshole! I should kill you right now!" Hiro snapped back.
Shaking his head in pain, Vincent sat up, glaring at Hiro.
"The fuck is your problem?! Starkweather wants these bastards to die in the most horrificly brutal way we can imagine! We give him that, there's a good chance of surviving the night, asshole."
"So you're all of a sudden willing to give in, and act like a psychopathic lunatic."
"Do you want to die?! I sure as FUCK don't!"
"Don't you have any morals?! Don't you feel bad?!"
"Of course I do! Before today, I have never killed a single person in my life! I've avoided it! But the only WAY for us to survive is to temporarily play by this assholes rules. We fuck up, we die! So don't go fucking questioning my actions when it's saving our lives!"
"Fuck you, psycho!"
"Psycho?! You're just calling me that 'cause I'm an ex-con! If we're going to base our opinions on our careers, and jump to conclusions, then I have the perfect right to call you a psycho!"
"Oh, really? Pray tell, why is that?"
"How many innocent people have you killed in the line of duty, officer? How many people have reached for their cell phones, or wallets, and got shot by your itchy trigger finger? How many times have you planted evidence? How many fucking times have you pulled a black man over just cause he was black? How many times have you beat that black man with your night stick?!"
"Not once!"
"Exactly my point! Just 'cause some cops are fucked up, doesn't mean all are! The same applies here! So stop calling me a psychopath, god damnit!"
"...Fine... We'll play your way, for now..."
Crack.
The two of them turned around towards the direction of the noise.
"Shit." Hiro whispered.
"See what you've done?"
"Fuck you!"
Vincent slowly and quietly bent down and picked up the man's machete.
"When I say so," Vince said, "we head for that door over there? Got it?"
"Yeah..."
Nothing... There wasn't any noise... Just the wind... No movement either... Not that they could tell, anyway. It was as dark as it could be.
"Now!"
The two of them darted south, heading towards the door. Sure enough, they heard foot steps and slightly muttered voices. It was unclear how many people there were, but with two men, one being unarmed, they were most likely out numbered.
A soft sound was heard behind them, and something flew past Hiro's neck.
"Shit! Guns!"
They reached the room and ran inside. To their delight, half the room was dark with shadows. They both ran to a corner of the room when the footsteps stopped. Moments later, they saw two men walk in. One was carrying a rifle, while the other was carrying a machete. They didn't make a sound, which was slightly surreal. They also seemed to be communicating to each other with hand signals.
As the men searched, they slowly began to near Vincent and Hiro. It was just a matter of time. Vincent slowly and quietly raised his machete, and just as one of them neared, he struck.
The sharp blade hit the man in the lower back, causing him to wheeze and blood fly forth from his mouth. The other turned towards his injured comrade just as Hiro, who was now wielding a chair leg, attacked him. He hit the man over the head with the leg, causing him to fall to the ground. Hiro swung the blunt object down towards the man's skull when, to his surprised, the wind was knocked out of him due to the man's rifle but hiting him in the stomach.
Vincent, not noticing Hiro's plight, continued to work on his victim. Grabbing the man by the hair, he swung the blade and hit him in the side of the neck, killing him. He then ripped the blade out, and swung twice more before the head was dislodged from his body. As he turned to face Hiro, he saw that the Wardog was now trying to choke him with his rifle. Thinking quickly, he threw the severed head at the Wardog, causing him to topple off Hiro. Grabbing the closest thing to a weapon, which was a shard of glass lying on the floor, Hiro began to pound on the man's chest, spraying blood. Satisfied that the man was dead, he tossed the shard of glass to the side and stood up panting, glancing over at Vincent in the process.
"Should I now call you psycho?" Vincent smirked.
"Fine... And thank you."
Hiro bent over and picked up the rifle, glancing at it before tossing it to the side with disgust.
"What? What's wrong?"
"The fucking barrel is bent... It must have happened when we were struggling... It's a makeshift tranquilizer rifle, also... So it's not like it would do us any good."
"Fuck..."
Vincent bent over and picked up the other man's machete.
"Well, at least you now have a weapon..."
"Yeah..."
"Alright... Let's keep moving..."
