Rook awoke with a yawn, he lay there in his cot for a few moments, staring up at the cot above his before stretching in his spot, feeling every ache pain, sore, cut and bruise he accumulated over the past week, he quietly winced in pain, he wanted a nice warm bath but knew he wouldn't get one for weeks at the earliest. As much as he would love to lay in bed all day fantasizing about all the things he wanted and needed, he had to get up and make the very fantasies a reality. So he rose from his cot and rose to his full height in hopes of stretching out the all that was wrong with his body, as he did he looked up on the cot above his to discover that Jess was not there, probably off doing whatever she did when wasn't hunting prey, human or animal.
He grabbed his firearms from underneath his cot and strapped them to his person and exited his cell and leaned against the railing to look down into the command center below, he could see the sheriff as usual, shifting through the papers on the big tables while speaking to few people, most likely to give their job for the day. He would soon join the men and women in the command room but the pains in his stomach said he needed to eat. So, he descended the stairs and down to the main floor and journeyed towards the cafeteria for so much needed breakfast, he dragged his feet though the halls, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes but stopped as Tracey approached him.
"Yo, Deputy, can I talk to you for a bit?" Tracey asked, her tone of voice seemed lower, softer even, not just that but even her general appearance seemed to have been loosened.
"Uh, yeah sure, what's up?" Rook asked, a part of him was a little nervous as he was worried she had somehow caught wind of his little chat with Faith Seed last night was here to reprimand him for it.
"I just wanna talk, come on, follow me" she said, turning away from the man, gesturing for him to follow.
"Yeah you got it" Rook responded and followed her through the prison halls for a few moments before leading him into a near empty hall where Tracey sat down in an unoccupied plastic chair.
Rook sat down next to her in another plastic chair next to her.
"So, what's up?" Rook asked.
Tracey sighed before answering.
"Listen, dude, I just wanted to say I'm sorry… I'm just so used to being angry I just can't help it, it gets real stressful around here sometimes, and I'm real sick of people not pulling their weight, and Virgil's team spirit attitude can be real grating, and now I'm just rambling now… listen what I'm trying to say is I'm sorry for being such a bitch to you, you've really stepped up and done a lot for us, you've made such a big difference, the changes you've made will save so many lives. So, thank you for everything you've done, Deputy, and your edgy hunger games knockoff friend" Tracey explained.
Rook chuckled slightly at the mouthful of a name of Jess, of course if she heard the name, she wouldn't find it as funny.
"Hey, don't worry about it, I'm just doing what's right, I can't just not help innocent people in need, besides my boss is here, I doubt he would just walk away scott free" Rook replied.
"Boy, ain't you just a real boy scout" Tracey spoke.
"Hey, don't you start too" Rook said quickly.
"What?" Tracey asked, unsure of what he meant by it.
"Never mind" Rook answered.
"So last night I was told you were spearheading the whole telecoms thing, so how'd that go" Rook asked.
"Fuck dude it was rough, trying to get organized, get supplies out here, but fucking peggies in the valley got some roadblocks or whatever put up and now it's real tough to get stuff to each other" Tracey moaned, leaning back in her chair.
"To be honest, I wouldn't mind just sitting around talk to people, it sure beats the hell out of all the running and gunning" Rook said.
"If you did that, who'd keep an eye on your friend, Black, I'd doubt she'd want to sit around and doing all this planning and organizing" Tracey answered.
"Naah, she'd just run off and do her own thing" Rook responded.
"Really, are you two capable of doing your own separate things?" Tracey questioned.
"What do you mean?" Rook asked, unsure of what she meant.
"You two seemed joined at the hip, you two always close to each other, hell when I spoke to people in Falls Ends, the people who knew you said you are like, always together" she explained.
"What, no were not, we usually do our own thing when we're not cult fighting" Rook responded.
"Uh-huh so, you two fucking or what?" Tracey asked.
"What!" Rook squeaked, feeling his cheeks burn a little bit.
"No way! I haven't even thought about her like that, hell I haven't even thought about woman in general like that, even if I wanted to make a move, she'd like, break my arms or something, like come on!" he said quickly in hopes of finishing his sentence and moving on from the subject.
Tracey let out a chuckle at the junior deputy, how something as little as sex would make him so flustered.
"Ok, ok, I get it calm down" She offered, smirking at the uncomfortable man.
"So, if you two aren't boning, why are you constantly together?" she asked.
"There isn't really a reason, we work good together and we realized it, so we just started rolling together, we get stuff done good" Rook surmised, the embarrassment subsiding.
"She doesn't get on your nerves, I mean all she does is shit talk doesn't she, that has to piss of someone like you off?" Tracey asked.
"Well yeah I guess yeah, maybe a little sometimes but it's not like she's a constant whirlpool of negativity, I think we can call each other friends" Rook guessed.
"Then what do you two talk about as friends then?" Tracey asked again.
Rook sat in silence for a few seconds to think of something good they talked about that didn't revolve around the cult. The thinking about his hooded friend brought forth a buried memory from yesterday morning, about how she had angrily told him that Tracey was with the cult for a time. The whole subject made the junior deputy quite curious, and a little nervous.
"Hey, so uh, instead can I ask you a question, but uh, don't take it the wrong way ok?" Rook asked.
"What, sure I guess" Tracey responded, giving Rook an odd look.
"So, well, I well, was insinuated that you kinda were a part of the cult for a bit" Rook explained.
Tracey let out a small grumpy sigh, her facial expression scrunched up into a grumpy face, Rook felt he was going to get a verbal lashing, he mentally braced himself for impact.
"Yeah" she sighed.
"Yeah I was with them for a bit"
"Wait really?!" Rook asked, blinking in surprise.
"Yeah, I was with them for a while, until I saw just what really went on in the back" Tracey said.
"Really, I can't see someone like you being a part of something like that, you know dumping bliss into water sources, dragging people off into the night, well I mean, you know what I mean right, I can't see you doing the things that the peggies are doing, hell I can't see you believing in the whole end of the world thing, you're too smart for that" he explained nervously.
"Your right, that wasn't why I joined up, I didn't care if the world was ending or not" she said.
"Then why did you join up, or how the hell did you even get out?" Rook asked, tilting his head to the side slightly.
Tracey was silent for a few seconds before responding.
"Keep this to yourself ok, I'm only telling you because you've really pulled us out of the fire and you've made it clear your not a complete piece of shit" Tracey said qiuetly.
"Uh yeah sure" Rook said, nodding slightly.
Tracey fell silent for a few seconds again, her eyes downcast briefly before looking back up.
"I uh, had this friend, her name was Rachel… she's gone now… we uh, we didn't have the best lives here, we had our own problems and we had our fucked-up ways of dealing with them together.. and well, to make a long story short eventually we just had enough, we packed our shit and we left the county, we went far west until we found this hippie movement, at first we didn't care about them, but then they were just so friendly and Rachel, she just loved them, they real nice, and actually gave a shit about us strangers, they didn't care about our past's or where we came from, so we rolled with them, started smoking weed and playing music, standing for what they believed in, and well… it was fun or a time"
"I don't even remember how it happened, but, next thing I knew I doing the really hard stuff, cocaine, all the bad stuff, then the next thing we knew our so called friends kicked us out of the group for going to far, for bringing everything down around us, so with no money or food, we had nowhere to go, so we did the only thing we could, we came back here, we floated around the county for a while, going from one high to another, we were completely unaware that Joseph and his fucking family had moved in, buying up all the land recruiting people into their cause, and well, with nowhere to go we joined up, they just seemed so welcoming just like the friends that kicked us out"
"Drug use was prohibited of course so Joseph himself carried us off to a little corner of his world a pumped us full of some shit that cleaned us up good, after that we just, fell in line for a time, and well… it was nice, again we found a place where people cared about us and gave us a place to stay, to live and grow, we felt like we belonged again, and Rachel just fell in love with the whole thing... and we were happy for once... Then for some reason she started acting all funny, not like herself, whatever she was doing Joseph liked, and swept her off for a higher up job. I didn't see her for a while, so I tried to find Rachel to catch up with, but the higher ups wouldn't let me, so I started looking for ways to sneak around them, but all that did was allow me to start noticing things, some real bad shit, I started calling them out as it happened hoping someone would help me, but all it did was earn me this" Tracey stopped talking to roll up her left sleeve to show the junior deputy that on her forearm, near the elbow, in crude letters spelt the word WRATH. Both knew what it meant, what John had done to her, she didn't need to explain.
"So anyways, I didn't let this slow me down, I kept seeing all these horrible things happen, then I started to hear how I was earning a re-education, what ever the fuck that meant, nothing good that's for sure, so one night I was finally able to meet up with Rachel, she was welcoming in new recruits… I volunteered to help too… and told her all the horrible things I saw… but it was like she just didn't care, she didn't care about the horrible things that were happening to innocent people and the people within the cult itself, but she was just so, different, she was someone different… she wasn't Rachel anymore, so after that I just grabbed what little I had and ran away… Again… I tried to tell people what I had seen but they didn't give a shit, all they knew was I was with Eden's Gate and Eden's Gate was starting to cause nothing but trouble, so I just stayed low and tried to get back on my feet, but after a few weeks the shit finally hit the fan and the peggies were on us, suddenly people started caring again, I was uh… here in the prison when it first kick off, I kinda knew what to expect when it happened and planned accordingly, so people just fell in line after that, they were all scared and didn't know what to do, next thing I knew the mayor was banging on the door with a group of scared people begging for help, we told 'em they could stay as long as they pulled their weight, a while later a sheriff came banging on our door and well, you know the rest" she finally finished.
"Holy shit" Rook muttered, unaware of how grim her story truly was.
"Yeah no kidding" she mumbled back, her eyes falling to the floor again.
"Hey, I'm sorry" Rook said, readjusting in his seat.
"I'm sorry for bringing that stuff up, if I knew it was a touchy subject I would have just left it alone, I'm sorry for picking at old wounds" he offered.
"Naah it's fine, it ain't like I have anything else to talk about" she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"But hey, thank you for sharing this with me, I appreciate your trust in me, that must have been hard.
"Yeah, just don't go telling people, especially Black, you can't tell her either" Tracey ordered.
"Of course, I won't tell I soul" Rook said, raising his right hand to give his scout's honor.
"Ok sweet, well I gotta get back to work" she said, standing back up, Rook also stood up with here.
"Yeah me too, Whitehorse will be calling me soon anyways, I gotta get more ammo too" he responded.
"See you around then, keep up the good work dude" she muttered as she turned and walked towards the doors leading to the command room.
Rook silently nodded and walked away from their spot and headed towards where the quartermaster was, he made it a good fifteen feet before Tracey's voice called out from the other end of the hall.
"Hey Dep!" Tracey called out.
Rook turned back to the woman at the other end of the hall.
"Hurry up and deal with Faith already" She said.
Rook gave her a silent nod, he was going to say something but stopped when he saw her face, her face had contorted back up into an irritated expression, her request had been coated in venom and disgust.
She turned around and pushed open the doors that lead into the command room, disappearing from Rook's sight.
Rook also turned back and moved down the hall and headed towards the quartermaster to prepare for the day, as he made his way there made an effort to remember what she had said.
Rook walked away from the quartermaster's table, fully loaded and ready to take on the day and began to work his way back to the command center.
"Hey, hey! This thing on, can anyone hear me?" Sharky's voiced echoed from Rook's walkie talkie.
Rook pulled the walkie off his hip and brought it to his mouth, a part of him was surprised as to how he knew that using walkies was a viable option now, he doubted that Tracey or someone inside the prison actually called him to let him know.
"What's up Sharky?" he asked.
"Hey deputy badass, I don't suppose you can swing by my place, uh my playground I mean, not like the place where my mail goes too, you remember where that is right?" Sharky asked.
"Yeah I remember, is everything ok?" Rook asked.
"Uh, yeah, everything is cool, it's that just I'm a little stuck" Sharky explained.
Rook was about to speak again but stopped as he could hear someone in the background speaking on Sharky's end.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll tell 'em just hold on" he heard Sharky say to the person.
"Hey, I don't suppose you can hurry though, no rush or anything but we would really appreciate it if you were to pop up sooner or later" Sharky implored the junior deputy.
"Is someone with you?" Rook asked again, not only had he heard the voice in the background, but he had noticed that Sharky had used the phrase we would really appreciate, not I would really appreciate.
"Oh yeah right, Hurk is here with me" Sharky said.
"Hey Bro!" Hurk blurted out loud enough for his voice to carry through the walkie.
"Hey Hurk, ok guys tell you what, I'll head down to help now just sit tight" Rook said.
Rook could hear the two men voice their praise as he placed the walkie on his hip before he pulled his truck keys from his pocket, whatever the sheriff had planned for him would have to wait, Sharky and Hurk could very well be in danger and were to proud or to cocky to admit their situation. Or it could even be a trap set by peggies, he turned back around and marched out the front door of the prison, climbed into his truck and drove off to the Moonflower Trailer Park.
The junior deputy pulled up in front of the trailer park and killed the engine, then reached for his walkie he had placed in the cupholder when he first climbed into the cabin.
"Hey guys, I'm here out front" Rook said into his walkie.
He stared at the walkie for a few moments awaiting a response, but after briefly waiting, no response came.
"Son of a bitch" Rook mumbled to himself, he knew it, this was a trap.
Rook slowly climbed out of the truck and armed himself with the bow and quiver full of arrows he had left in the truck yesterday and strapped the quiver to his person and loaded an arrow into the bow before slowly creeping through the front gate, scanning the area for any foul play, but nothing stuck out, it wasn't to hard to spot his two friends as they stood motionless upon the raised platform that housed a small swimming pool in the middle of the trailer park, they were standing a few feet a part, facing each other, they where doing something with their hands, it looked as if their hands had been tied to one another, a few meters from a broken down school bus.
Hurk's head lolled to the side slightly and spotted the junior deputy slowly creeping up on them
"Yo dude!" Hurk called out nonchalantly, almost excitedly as he saw the junior deputy approach.
"Hey, what's going on?" Rook asked as quietly as he could but loud enough for the two men to hear it.
"Is the deputy here?" Sharky asked, trying to crane his head around to get a look behind him.
The junior deputy's eyes zipped around his surroundings, his friends seemed quiet casual for being apparently stuck, but something seemed up. Rook looked around for anything that looked suspicious, but nothing seemed out of place, but then again this was a pyromaniac's playground, so everything seemed out of place, if there was a sign of struggle, it was hidden under the state of disrepair the park was perpetually in. He moved closer to the two men and could see the two standing in front of each other barely two feet apart, their hands raised to chest level, palms facing down, and looked like they were pressing their fingertips onto the other.
"Where are the peggies?" Rook whispered.
"Peggies? There ain't no peggies here, dude" Sharky answered casually, not a care in the world.
"Wait seriously?" Rook asked standing up, his voice returning to a normal volume.
"Then what are you guys doing?" he asked, safely loosening the tension in his bow, placing the arrow back in the makeshift quiver and inserted his arm through the bow and hung it on his shoulder like he had seen Jess do many times before.
"Oh, y'know, just hanging around" Hurk said awkwardly as Rook approached.
Rook walked right up to the two men and could truly see their predicament, the reason why they were so close to each other with hands at chest level with their palms facing downward was because on each of Sharky individual fingers had Chinese finger traps on them, with Hurk's finger firmly locked into the other end of said traps, binding the two together.
"Oh my god" Rook moaned burying his face in his hand.
"Do I dare ask what could have possibly possessed you to do this?" he groaned, now realizing that there really was no danger.
"Ok, I know how it looks, but hear me out" Sharky said, still trying to crane his head around to see his friend.
"So this is what happened ok? Me an' Hurk were just doing our things, being awesome and lookin' cool, yada, yada, yada, Hurk starts going on about all the adventures and how he's been all around the world and going on about how he learned all these things and thought himself a huge badass, then I, an intellectual, call him out on his big fat lies as he had no proof of his claims and said he wasn't all that, so more arguing yada, yada, and it basically ends with me and him coming up with a test to see who was the bigger badass, we'd put ourselves in this situation here" Sharky explained, nodding his head down to gesture to the traps on his fingers.
"And so, the test was just who can get out of these things first, whoever did was the bigger badass… and well that was about forty-five minutes ago" Sharky sighed.
"Seriously?" Rook moaned.
"Yeah I know, ten minutes in we realized neither of us could get out and tried workin' together to get out, but we couldn't, so we basically gave up and tried to call you" Hurk stated.
Rook sighed before responding.
"Where did you even get those things?" Rook questioned, pointing at the traps.
"I actually made 'em, learned how to in high school, had to do something in detention, I can make 'em in all kinds of lengths and sizes" Sharky offered.
"Wait hold on a second, if you two have been like this for forty-five minutes, how'd you two call me a little bit ago?" Rook asked, the whole scenario dawning on him.
"We spent a while getting the walkie talkie offa Hurk's belt, but we dropped it, then we spent a while getting the one offa my belt, called you then dropped it" Sharky explained, looking down at his feet.
Rook followed Sharky's gaze to see in between Hurk and Sharky's feet was two walkie talkies lay on the ground between them.
"Yeah we kinda dropped the second one a little while after I called you, Hurk moved when he shouldn't've" Sharky explained.
"Hey, come on man, I told you I was itchy" Hurk whined.
Rook sighed in light frustration, he felt a little miffed over the whole thing, he could have been out in the county helping people right now, he should have just reported this to the sheriff and let him send someone out here to deal with it.
"Ok guys, where is a knife or something so I can cut you free?" Rook asked looking around for something sharp
"Uh yeah over there" Sharky said, nodding his off to the side, trying his best to point to the metal box on the edge of the raised platform.
Rook turned to said box to see a knife lay on the top of the box, it sat next to a few bundles of dynamite and an abundance of wiring. He quickly walked up to the box and quickly took the bow off his shoulder and placed it on the box before retrieving the knife and returned to his bound friends and brought the tip of the knife millimeters from the finger trap and was ready to plunge it in.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Hurk suddenly cried.
The sudden cry startled Rook, causing him to quickly pull away the knife from the trap.
"What?" Rook asked perplexed.
"Please man… be careful ok? I need my fingers for stuff just be careful" Hurk begged.
"Seriously dude, you don't trust deputy badass here?" Sharky said.
"I got this man don't worry" Rook said as he brought the knife back up to the finger traps.
He pushed the tip into the side of the trap deep enough that if there was a finger in the way they either man would say something, once it was determined there was no fingers in the way, in one quick motion flicked the blade downward and cut the trap in half, Rook then repeated the action four more times, freeing the two men, now with their hands free they were able to pull off what ever remained on their fingers.
"Ok, so you guys are free now, I'm going to get going now" Rook said, sticking a thumb over his shoulder.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Hurk started repeating rapidly while patting at the air, trying to keep the junior deputy from departing.
"What?" Rook asked, curious as to why Hurk's attitude had changed so quickly
"Ok so I kinda feel bad for draggin' you all the way out here for this lil thing and I'm sure you just wanna do yer job and like, wanna go al' Dog The Bounty Hunter on Joseph and his family, so let's make it up to you, we were kinda saving this for a rainy day, but we have something we can totally do it now" Hurk offered.
He turned to look at Sharky.
"Let's get the boat" he said confidently.
"The boat?" Rook echoed in confusion.
"What, for reals dude?" Sharky asked.
"Hell yeah, the deputy is a huge peggie eating badass, he could totally help us do the thing" Hurk responded.
"What are we doing?" Rook asked.
"I don't know dude; do you think it'll be enough, it could get real shaky, I don't got all the explosives ready" Sharky asked, rubbing his chin in deep contemplation.
"What guys, what are we doing?" Rook asked again, slightly louder.
"Fuck it, let's do it" Sharky cried, grinning madly.
"Hell yeah dude!" Hurk cheered, raising his hands over his head.
"Guys come on" Rook said again, waving his hands around, trying to get their attention.
"Right dude sorry, come on, follow us we'll explain on the way, it's a real good way to stick it them peggies" Sharky explained as he walked off the edge of the trailer park, looking down over the edge.
Rook and Hurk followed Sharky to edge of the trailer park, looking over the edge of the park, Rook forgot the park sat on the top on a hill, it was a somewhat high up but had a very light decline, from there he could see Rock Bass Lake due to the elevation of the hill they would walke down, , by Rooks estimate; it was a ten-minute walk, but also, the black smoke trail that usually signified heavy peggie activity, probably coming from an outpost, he made a mental note that it was so close to Sharky's place.
Hurk dramatically pointed a finger down at the lake.
"We're goin' swimin' boys!" he declared confidently before venturing down the hill.
The three men walked down the side of the hill towards Rock Bass Lake, casually chatting.
"Ok so here's the plan" Sharky said.
"Yesterday when Hurk was comin' on over to my place he bumped inta' your resistance dudes and he heard them mention that some of Faith's dudes have just started dumpin' a crap ton of bliss into Rock Bass Lake, and we can't just let that happen now can we? All the fish is gonna get high as shit, so will anyone who drinks from the lake, and if like, bears or us or whatever eat those drug fish then they'll get high then that's just not a fun time for anyone… And well when I set stuff on fire I really don't wanna put it out with drug water, and so, well, we've been workin' on this boat, so we were thinkin' what if we hit it ourselves, I mean we were going to do it eventually if you don't do it, so why not do it now" Sharky explained.
"Ok I see your point, that sound's really bad, we need to shut that down as so as possible, thank you for informing me about this" Rook replied.
"No probs amigo, if we wanna stop these sum bitches we gotta work together on this collab, you know what I mean dude, I'm the Bee Gee's you're Phil Collins" Sharky replied.
"Yeah I feel you, I don't really care what it is I just want to do something that will help people and push back the cult" Rook said.
"Well if you need something burned or exploded, me and my cousin can totally help" Sharky responded, sticking a thumb at Hurk.
"Wait, you two are related?" Rook asked astonished.
"Yeah bro, I'm his older cousin, my daddy is his uncle" Hurk explained.
"Shit, I never knew, I don't really see a resemblance" Rook said.
"Yeah we get that a lot, it's cool though, I got all the looks and awesomeness and what not and he got what ever was left" Hurk smirked.
"We both no that ain't true dude, just because you went around the world being a world class warrior, does not just make you better then me, I got the same amount of life experience as you an' hell, you couldn't even get out of the finger traps" Sharky said.
"What!" Hurk exclaimed in surprise.
"Sharky man you need to respect your elders' man, I got way more life experience then you and I bust way more heads then you" Hurk said, scolding his cousin.
"Just because you had one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever heard in my life; was to tape dynamite to monkey's doesn't mean that you know everything about everything" Sharky fired back, sounding a little offended at Hurk's claims, but Hurk wasted no time firing back.
"You watch your mouth, you bite your tongue and you show my chimps, that's right they are chimps you them their proper respect ok, you don't go slandering their names!" Hurk retorted back, annoyed.
"Guys, guys" Rook jumped in, hoping to defuse the situation.
"From what I've seen from both of you, you both kick ass equally good" he said.
"But I do it just a little bit better, right?" Hurk asked.
"No, he said equally, even though it's me and he doesn't want to hurt your feelings" Sharky said quickly.
"Tell you guys what, whenever we run together I'll keep a mental score of who kicks ass better and I'll tell you who did better when the cult is gone, sound good?" Rook offered.
Both men were quick to agree, then both started casually going on about how they would best the other, as quick as their bickering had started it, it had melted away into them playfully teasing each other about who would win, both now motivated, Rook hoped they would bring their A game now.
"So how much further is this boat?" Rook asked.
"We're getting actually real close, like two more minutes" Sharky said, before resuming his conversation with his cousin.
Eventually the hill flattened out with a road stretched out across it, the three men crossed the road and journeyed onward, from there the ground began to slope down at a harsher angle, now Rook could hear the sound of water lapping at a shoreline, they had to be close.
"Ok so we're just about here, hope no one touched the boat, had a lot of goodies stored away on that thing" Sharky said as he picked up speed towards the sounds of the river, Hurk and Rook met his pace and followed. As the three men drew near the riverbank they could now see the boat, it sat horizontally on the edge of the river, half on the bank and half in the river, the water lapped at the boat but was nowhere near strong enough to pull it down stream. It was the model Rook had usually see patrolling the waters, he was pretty sure he heard someone at the prison called the model a Salacia, the boat was small and could probably hold no more then six people and had a rectangular metal frame that stood in the rear of the boat by the motor and held up what looked like a M60, firmly mounted to the frame. The sides and interior had been lovingly decaled with numerous graffiti's and doodles of various colors and sizes.
"Here we are" Hurk said proudly, staring at the boat.
"Nice boat" Rook commented.
"If you like that then take a peek at this" Hurk said excitedly as he ushered him to the back of the boat.
"Tada!" Hurk exclaimed, while dramatically gesturing to the back of the boat with jazz hands.
It took Rook a second to realize that Hurk was gesturing to the name of the boat that had been hastily scrawled on the back in red spray paint, it clearly read Cool Dudes With Tudes.
"Cool Dudes With Tudes, huh?" Rook said taking in the boat's title in slight confusion.
"Yeah man, ain't it awesome!" Hurk cried happily.
"We knew we couldn't get Cool Dudes With Attitudes on the back so we had to cut it down a bit but it's still cool as shit" Sharky grinned.
"That's a good name" Rook smirked, nodding his head, just rolling with it.
"Thanks Bro, but you haven't seen the best part yet" Hurk said as he climbed into the boat and knelt down to pick something up.
"Deputy Radical, I bequeath upon you one of my deadliest weapons I have ever created, may it serve you well in the coming hour" Hurk narrated in a dramatic voice as he lifted something up off the floor of the boat and presented it to the junior deputy.
The thing that Hurk was holding out to Rook looked like a standard RPG launcher but instead of the warhead of an RPG sticking out of the end was a shovel with a smiley face spray painted onto the head of the shovel.
"What am I looking at?" Rook asked, staring at the weapon.
"This is a Drubman patented shovel launcher, this thing fires a shovel with the force of an RPG missile, and the best part is this thing is totally silent, this thing might as well be a harpoon launcher" Hurk explained.
"Holy shit… this thing is super dangerous, but it's also without a doubt is more then enough to kill anything that moves" Rook muttered in awe, almost impressed that Hurk had made such a weapon, then taking the weapon from him.
"You think that's cool, then your going to have a blast, I've been stealing shovels left and right and been storin' them for a special occasion" Hurk said as he bent back down again and struggled to lift up a large duffel bag with what looked like two dozen shovels poking out of it, barely containing the contents within the bag.
"Shit dude" Rook muttered, as Hurk placed the bag back down.
"Hey before we get going we should use like, proper protection" Sharky said.
"Wait hold on, you, Sharky, want to use safety?" Rook said, somewhat surprised at Sharky's proclamation.
"Well yeah dude, just this once, almost every boat in the county has a big goddamn gun strapped to it, one shot from that and your gonna lose a limb or somethin" Sharky said.
"Ok I see your point, so what's your idea of protection?" Rook asked.
"These" Sharky replied as climbed into the boat and bent down briefly to pick up a Kevlar vest off the boat's floor and slipped into it.
"Wadiya think?" Sharky asked, placing his hands on his hips and puffing out his chest, all the while smiling proudly.
Rook could see why he was enjoying the vest as in bright red letters were the words BURN BABY BURN in bright red spray paint, the three words covering the front of his vest.
"Nice, I dig the tag but how will that protect the limbs?" Rook asked.
"Well uh, don't worry about that and just hope the vest takes it for dude" Sharky grinned, giving the junior deputy a shrug.
Before Rook could respond Hurk spoke up.
"Don't worry we got one for you too" Hurk huffed as he climbed out of the boat with the vest in hand.
Rook gently put the shovel launcher onto the ground so he may be able to put on the vest, Hurk himself now also wearing a Kevlar vest that clearly read B.D.E.
He smirked a little and took the Kevlar vest from him and held it out to see what was written on it, just like on the back of the boat, in red spray paint, crudely written was the message; Lamb In The Streets Sinner In The Sheets.
"I'm not wearing this" Rook said wholeheartedly as he shook his head.
"Oh, come on it's fuckin' funny, it took me like ten minutes to think of that" Hurk moaned.
"I can't wear this, if my friends see me in this they'll get the wrong idea about me, you seriously have nothing less… Audacious?" Rook asked.
"Sorry dude, only one left" Hurk shrugged.
Rook sighed before putting it on.
"Ok fine let's just do this" Rook muttered.
"Sweet, now help me push this thing into the water" Hurk said as he returned to the back of the boat while Sharky climbed in and got behind the steering wheel.
Rook silently nodded and placed the shovel launcher in the boat before the two men pushed the boat in to the water, then the two men climbed in, Sharky started up the boat and sailed up the river.
The boat carried the three men down river down towards Rock Bass Lake. Rook had stood crouched on the front of the boat, keeping an eye out for any peggies, Sharky had gotten behind the wheel and only referred to himself as Helmsman, as Hurk climbed into the rectangular frame and maned the M60 in a standing seat, he estimated it was only five minutes but was obviously wrong as it took almost ten to break out of the river and enter the edge of the lake, from there Rook could see just what they were getting into, the lake was smaller then he expected as Rook could see the entire lake from the mouth of the river, a few islands floated in the center of the lake; a handful of trees grew upon them. A few of bridges stretched across the edges of the lake and connected to a very large island in the corner of the lake, but no other boats sat in the lake.
"So where are the peggies?" Rook yelled over the boats motor.
"There here somewhere, I can feel it" Hurk yelled back from his standing seat and raised his hand to his brow to block the sunlight from entering his eyes to get a better look of the lake, he puffed out his chest and hooked a thumb behind his belt buckle, doing his best to strike a power pose.
"You sure dude, I don't see anything either" Sharky yelled.
"Let's do a lap around the edge of the lake and see what we can find" Rook ordered.
"You got it captain!" Sharky yelled enthusiastically as he pulled down on the wheel and steered the boat towards the edge of the river before pulling on it again, turning the boat ninety degrees and skirting the edge of the river.
The boat sailed along the edge of the lake; the trio made it halfway around the lake before Sharky spoke up.
"Yo Hurk, you sure that info was right?" he yelled.
"Wha- yeah I'm sure, Peggies dumping crap in Rock Bass, that's what I heard" Hurk retorted.
"Are you sure you didn't mishear it, you sure they didn't say Rock Base, not Rock Bass?" Rook asked.
"What! no way, peggies are in th' water I know it" Hurk retorted.
"Should I still do laps around the lake?" Sharky asked.
"Yes, keep going around!" Rook yelled back, making a circular motion with his index finger.
"This whole region is called the Henbane River right, so let's just do a quick up and down the river and see what we can see" rook offered.
"Sounds good to me dude, got nothing else planned for today, well besides workin' on my flamethrower!" Sharky yelled.
"I don't care what we do, as long as I'm rockin' it with my bros I'm cool, let's go!" Hurk hollered enthusiastically.
"Alrighty, let's head for that opening!" Rook ordered, pointing towards an opening in the lake that fed into another river that went deeper into the Henbane.
"You got it Captain; the Helmsman is changing course!" Sharky said happily as he turned the wheel and headed for the river mouth.
As the three sailed towards the river mouth, a singular boat lazily floated out of the river's mouth, from what Rook could see, the boat was the same if not near identical to the boat they were in, mounted M60 and all, a few blurry figures moved about the boat, he was unsure whether or not they were friendly.
Hey, you guys see that?" Rook cried, pointing at the boat.
"Hell yeah I do, wanna get closer?" Sharky asked.
"Yeah let's do it, Hurk get ready to fire just in case!" he ordered.
With that, Sharky took the boat closer to the other boat, pulling down on the throttle, slowing their speed so they could properly approach the other boat and as they did the people on the other boats began to scurry about on their small boat.
"Hey, you them peggies dumping shit in the water?!" Hurk yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth to make himself louder.
"Hurk, come on!" Rook scolded, he wished Hurk kept some sort of element of subtlety.
But the response they received was nothing more then angry yelling come from the other boat despite the roar of the motors, the three could clearly see that the other boat had three peggies aboard.
"Hurk open fire, Shark make us some space!" Rook shouted.
"Let's make some noise!" Hurk cheered as he lined up the M60 on the approaching peggies before opening fire as Sharky pulled up on the throttle and wrenched the steering wheel causing the boat to do a hard U-turn.
The heavy fire Hurk produced caused the peggie gunship to also swerve and try to move around the fire, but Hurk kept the heat on, but did not last long as a peggie in the gunner position returned fire with his gun, causing Hurk to instinctively duck down, causing his aim to suffer.
"Careful up there, dude!" Sharky yelled.
"Yeah, yeah, keep th' boat steady!" Hurk yelled back.
As Hurk tried to line up his shot again, the peggie gunship suddenly shot forward in a burst of speed, in an attempt to close the distance between the two boats all the while firing upon the three men.
"Pedal to the medal, Sharky!" Rook yelled as he slowly worked his way to the back of the boat and grabbed a hold of the metal frame that held up Hurk and the large gun, he held on with one hand and with the other pulled the pistol of his leg and fired at the incoming peggies.
With the junior deputy also firing back, it prompted a single peggie to stagger his way to the front of the boat and also shoot at his enemies with an AK-47, neither man could land a decent hit on the other, bullets missing by a few feet.
"You got it!" Sharky yelled as he pushed the boat's throttle to the max and sped the boat up.
With both boats moving at top speed, the peggie boat chased the three men around the lake in large ovals, firing upon each other, the waves hitting the boats, and constant veering to dodge bullets made it increasingly hard for one to land a hit on the other, occasionally Hurk or the peggie gunner would whip their gun around just right and a small hail of bullets would plink off the side of their boats.
"Hey dude, use the shovels!" Hurk finally yelled over his gunfire.
"Right!" Rook returned, he had forgotten he had the launcher and picked up off the floor of the boat.
"Ok let's see what this thing can do" Rook muttered to himself as he dropped to one knee and lifted the shovel launcher onto his shoulder and tried to line up a shot, he could see the man standing on the very front of the boat, firing separately at the trio with an automatic rifle.
When Rook felt his aim was good enough he squeezed the trigger, a part of him hoped the launcher wouldn't just explode in his hands, put instead a dull whoosh emitted from the launcher and the shovel inside flew out silently like an arrow from a bow and sailed through the air and towards the enemy, put the flying shovel fell short, sinking into the lake's depths.
"Aim higher dude!" Rook heard Hurk yell.
Rook silently agreed and reached over to the large duffel and yanked out another shovel and maneuvered it towards the mouth of the launcher and shoved it in.
"Ok, round two" Rook muttered to himself as he lifted the launcher onto his shoulder again and aimed it much higher and sent a few moments lining up a shot on the same man, he sat there and waited, feeling the boats juking and the waves rocking the boats and waited for the for the right time and watched the man dip in and out of his retical and felt a small pattern open up before him, the enemy boat would move left then right then even out to fire accurately, as the peggies juked to right and estimated where they would be when they lined up again then squeezed the trigger again.
The shovel soared through the air gracefully over the water and right towards the enclosing peggie gunship and slammed into a peggie square in the chest sending him flying backwards and off the back of the ship in one quick moment, Rook wasn't sure if the shovel just knocked the man over and his boat's speed just threw him back or if the launcher was just that powerful, regardless, the meatal shovel head slammed into his torso, the man was as good as dead.
"Holy monkey gods in heaven, you see that?!" Hurk cheered excitedly.
"This thing is insane" Rook thought to himself, in awe over what exactly he was holding.
"Look at those bastards, they're real scared now!" Hurk cheered.
Rook focused in on the peggies on the boats, he could exactly see their faces, but they were moving more erratically now, but it didn't matter as the peggie in the gunner seat was still firing away and was getting dangerously close.
"Ok I think we can take them!" Rook yelled before carefully pulling out another shovel and loaded it into the launcher.
"Man, we are bad ASS fella's you see that, we're a bonafide unit, nothin' can stop us now!" Sharky cheered.
"Oh shit, Bros, look!" Rook heard Hurk yell, he looked up to see the man had released a single hand of the M60 and pointed back to the river mouth they intended to enter, and to his and Hurk's dismay, three more boats, obviously peggies come out of the mouth and begin their pursuit.
"Aw dammit was that me, did I just jinx us? My bad dudes!" Sharky sheepishly apologized.
"Aw shit, guys we got to get out of here!" Rook cried, lowering the launcher off his shoulder.
"What, what's going on?!" Sharky asked, to focused on not getting peppered with bullets.
"Three more peggie gunships, we need to leave!" Rook yelled again.
"Fuck! Say no more amigo!" Sharky yelled as he wrenched the wheel again and turned the boat, so it sped towards the river mouth they had first came from.
The three new gunships turned to the Deputy's direction before increasing speed and began firing with their mounted guns.
"Hey, I don't know about you, but I think we should call it a day and head back to land!" Sharky yelled.
"Sounds good to me!" Rook shouted back
A halo of bullets pummeled the side of the boat, many simply bounced off while others sunk into the boat, putting holes into the boat.
"Shit bros, things are getting a lil' hot!" Hurk yelled as more bullets hit the metal hull.
"Yeah, we need a real plan, I gotta slow down a lot if we wanna get through the river safely!" Sharky yelled.
"We're heavily outgunned, I don't suppose you guys got like, some sort of fire explosion thing we can use?!" Rook asked.
"Na'ah man, we left the ol' rocket launcher and flamethrower back at the trailer park right before we tested to see who was better!" Sharky returned.
"Wait!" Hurk suddenly shouted.
"Shark, did you eat hot dogs recently?!" he asked.
"What, uh yeah man, sorry if you were saving 'em for a rainy way" Sharky replied.
"Dep, look in the box!" Hurk yelled, pointing down to a small metal ammo box at the base of the metal frame that supported the M60 and Hurk, the box slid a few feet with every jerk of the boat.
Rook quickly stole a glance back at the enemy boats that fired at him before dropping the shovel launcher then stomped over to the box, but the intense jerking of the boat caused by Sharky trying to evade enemy fire caused the junior deputy to fall over, hitting the ground with a thud, as he pushed himself to his hands and knees, as he did he could see the metal box in the corner of his vision. He reoriented himself and grabbed the box and hastily ripped the lid open to reveal it was packed with a dozen or so sticks of dynamite.
"Hey man, there's dynamite in there and not hot-dogs right?" Hurk asked nervously.
"Yeah we got explosives, I need a lighter though" Rook shouted back.
"There should be one in there" Hurk yelled, trying to line up a shot with the M60.
Rook dug around in the box, pushing dynamite and ketchup packets around, for a few moments before finding a silver lighter.
"Got it!" Rook yelled as he then pulled the lighter and a stick of TNT and light the fuse, he held onto it tightly and watched the fuse sizzle down a few millimeters before turning towards the pursuing boats and threw it at the closet one as hard as he could.
The dynamite sank into the water just as the first shovel had, Rook stared at it intently waiting for it to explode but was quickly swallowed up as the boat drove directly over where it submerged, he was about to write it off as ineffective and obtain another stick but then suddenly the dynamite exploded, launching the back end of the peggie boat up, the amount of speed the boat was generating combined with the explosion in the back was more then enough capsizing the vessel, and showered down a spray of water on the two peggies that swam out from underneath the boat, desperate to catch their breaths. The gunboats behind them blew past them, more interested in stopping the sinners then recover their allies.
"Dude that was fuckin' awesome!" Hurk cheered.
"Let's hope I can do it again!" Rook yelled back as he fished out another stick of dynamite and lit the fuse, like before he waited a few seconds to run down the few before throwing it as hard as he could, the stick flew through the air and splashed down into the lake but the gunships were to far back and saw the stick go into the water, the gunships maneuvered themselves around the area where it landed, the dynamite detonated behind them safely.
"Oh, come on!" rook growled in frustration.
He needed a plan, the had to slow down when they made it to the river's opening to traverse it safely, but if they did they would be torn apart by high caliber weapons.
"Ok I have an idea!" Sharky hollered.
"What you got?!" Rook returned.
"What if we just don't slow down when we get into the river?!" Sharky suggested.
"Then we'd just beach the boat" Rook Yelled.
"But we'd be on land" Sharky countered.
Rook was about to give his rebuttal but what Sharky had said made him pause, he had a point in a way, sure they'd be on land and could be able to retreat inland but could they even clear the distance and get behind the trees before the peggies were on them, could they even beach the boat without horribly flipping it, Rook snapped his head around to see where the boat was sailing, obviously it was sailing right for the river the came from, but what he wanted to see was the terrain of the riverbank, it was a smooth incline or rocks, dirt, and grass. Sharky's idea wasn't completely out of the question.
"Dep!?" Hurk yelled nervously, wanting an answer, his cover fire could only do so much.
Rook paused for a few more seconds, trying to go over all his options.
"Amigo!?" Sharky yelled, also nervous, at this time they drew quite close to the river's mouth, they would pass through it in thirty seconds, tops.
"Shit, ok, do it!" Rook finally yelled and held on to the metal frame with both hands as tightly as he could, he pressed against it, screwing his eyes shut.
"Ight, brace for impact!" Sharky yelled as they sailed towards the river mouth.
"Oh sweet merciful monkey gods of righteousness, please guide your apostles of badassness to the path of safety and if you really want guide us to the path of pizza pockets" Hurk nervously prayed the sides of the river closed in quick making turning the boat very tricky.
The narrow straight line of the river was coming to an end very soon as the river bended very slowly into a ninety-degree angle, and soon to be where they will dock at the speed they moved, they be on land in seconds.
"Hold on to yer butts!" Sharky yelled, he tighten his grip on the wheel and leaned back into his seat and braced for impact.
The boat slammed into the riverbank, the sheer speed allowed the boat to hop up onto dry land, sliding a good fifteen feet inland, despite the momentum, the initial impact caused the boat, the upward lift generated caused everything except the three men to become airborne briefly, a few odds and ends flew off the back of the boat. If the men had not braced for impact, they surely would have been thrown off.
Rook reached up and grabbed the metal frame; the boat beaching had caused him to stagger then slammed him hard into the metal frame, crushing the oxygen out of him, causing him to fall to the floor, but thankfully the Kevlar vest had absorbed most of the blow so he wasn't it a lot of pain. The Junior Deputy began to carefully stand up.
"Everyone still alive?" He wheezed.
"I think so" he heard Sharky moan as he shifted in his seat, adjusting the off-kilter baseball cap on his head, and slowly rose to his feet.
"Hurk, you still good?" Sharky asked aloud.
The two men sat in relative silence awaiting a response that never came.
"Hurk?" Rook asked a little louder now, shifting is gaze up at the gunners seat to see the man was able to keep himself inside the boat but was slumped over the M60, motionless.
Rook unsteadily rose to his feet and staggered over to the man, with one arm he leaned against the metal frame to catch his breath, while using the other to grab a handful of Hurk's pant leg and gave it a few good pulls.
"Hey Hurk, are you ok buddy?" Rook asked, looking for up at the man, concerned.
"But Ma, I don't wanna go'da Garry's" he mumbled, as he limply stirred in his standing seat.
The engines in the distance grew louder, causing Rook to steal a glance in their direction, he could see that the peggies had slowed they're boats to a near stop so they could safely enter the river one by one and would be a upon them in less then a minute
Rook turned back to the collapsed man.
"Hurk buddy, you gotta get up, the bad guys are coming" Rook said, shaking his pant leg again.
Hurk slowly sat up, moaning.
"Ughhh, I don't feel so good, Mister Stark"
"Come on dude, you gotta walk it off, we need to go" Sharky warned. The motors of the Peggie gunships drew dangerous close now.
Since Rook had found Hurk wrapped around the large gun, he could only assume the butt of said gun had buried itself into Hurk's stomach at the very least, he could have very well hit his head on the gun as the Butt's impact would have mostly likely made him double over to protect his stomach, sure he had the Kevlar on put it wasn't a suit of armor.
"Ugh, I feel like a I fell of an elephant again" he moaned as he slowly slipped out of the gunner's position and shambled towards the front of the boat, then bent down to pick up the shovel launcher that miraculously stayed in the boat and hoisted it over his shoulder.
"Let's rock and roll, Bros" Hurk said as looked back at his friend and cousin.