This Rotten World | Book 1 | This Rotten World

by Morris, Jacy

  Clara should be sleeping, or at the very least, dead tired. Tuesday night was not the time to be out at a punk rock show. She thought she had left that phase of her life behind her when she had been accepted into graduate school. She should be at home, in bed, dreaming of case files and precedents, and bar exams. Instead, she was in this crappy dive, sweating away her evening, her white wifebeater clinging to her ribs and breasts.

  But what are you going to do? When Electric Fever, the quirkiest, cultiest, Japanese punk rock band that ever existed suddenly shows up in town, you drop whatever the hell you're doing and get your ass to the show.

  Things wouldn't be so bad if Electric Fever hadn't been exactly what they were, snotty, self-involved cokeheads with a complete lack of regard for their fans. Clara supposed you could afford to be that way if you only ever toured once or twice every four years. She had showed up at 11 with her boyfriend Courtney, hoping to sneak in, down a few drinks, and catch Electric Fever's set, but when she had showed up, the first opening band was only just hitting the stage.

  They were a lackluster local act; the type of band that only played gigs in local venues because they couldn't afford to call in sick to their day jobs the following morning. Clara and Courtney listened to one song; they were thoroughly unimpressed, so they walked up to the bar, ordered some PBR's, and stood there sipping them while trying to have a conversation, which was nearly impossible amid the eardrum-splitting feedback blasting out of the clubs speakers. The club was relatively new and had the smell of "soon to close" all over it. That's the way clubs were in the city; here one week and gone the next.

  When Electric Fever had finally hit the stage, after three more forgettable punk rock acts, they were just as billed. The lead singer had stormed onto stage, chugged a beer, and then threw the empty can at his adoring fanbase, all while giving the middle finger to the crowd. His name was Ace Fever, the coolest Japanese man that had ever existed. It was a wonder how he was still alive. Behind him, Hey Fever, the drummer, and Jungle Fever, the bass player entered in matching leather outfits. The studs and buckles glittered underneath the multicolored lights that hung over the stage and turned mere mortals into momentary gods.

  The crowd had surged forward, and they hadn't even played a note yet. Ace Fever stood on the stage, regarding the crowd from behind his dark sunglasses, his arms crossed. With his left arm, he slowly reached for the microphone, and when his fingertips touched the mic, Electric Fever sprung into action, assaulting the audience with a barrage of unintelligible distortion, screaming Japanese, and electric guitar fury. Flames shot out of Ace's mic stand and the room began to naturally spin in a fury of twisted limbs and energy as a circle pit turned the middle of the dance floor into a sweat-slicked meat grinder. She loved every second of it, even if she had no idea what the band was saying. It was actually better that way. There were no words to get hung up on, no meanings to ponder. There was just fury and feedback.

  Clara's boyfriend Courtney loved it every bit as much as her. He was a little rough around the edges, and he still hadn't warmed up to dating a potential lawyer, but when you had been going out as long as they had, you overlooked the fact that one of you had turned into a sellout. Her hair was a natural color now, for the first time in years, a cocoa brown. She had taken all of the metal out of her face, and she was thankful that Courtney had talked her out of getting her ears gauged years ago, or else she'd be sporting big floppy earlobes.

  She smiled as she caught a glimpse of Courtney spinning on the other side of the pit, his eyes feverish with joy. Suddenly, a face appeared in front of her. It had red-rimmed eyes, snarled like Billy Idol, and didn't seem quite right. She shoved the man away, and sped along on her own route, counterclockwise, always counterclockwise.

  She tripped over the shoe of one of the people lurking on the edge of the circle. Clara's effort to catch her balance went for naught when her foot slipped on the beer-slick dance floor. Her ankle twisted outward, and she felt a pop. She went sprawling to the ground, not even noticing the burn of the knee she scraped on the laminate floor due to the intense pain in her ankle. The hands of the people in the pit pulled her to her feet and ushered her off to the side. She leaned on the shoulder of a stranger, grimacing in pain; she turned around to see Courtney struggling with the man that she had shoved away in the pit.

  From her vantage point, she could see that the man didn't belong here. His flannel shirt and camouflage hat had the reek of hillbilly about them. She moved to help Courtney, but her first step was one of agonizing pain. Her ankle simply wasn't working right.

  All she could do was scream and point as the hillbilly sunk his teeth into the side of Courtney's face. Courtney lashed out at the man, punching him in the jaw with his fists. The hillbilly pulled back, taking a bite of Courtney's cheek with him. The fury of the pit had stopped, and Electric Fever, noticing the oddity of a still pit, stopped playing.

  Courtney stumbled backwards, his hand held to his face. "What the fuck?" Blood seeped through his fingers, as the lights overhead continued to display an alarming array of different colors. First his blood was black, then it was blue, then it was yellow. The hillbilly stood at the edge of the pit, chewing, and seemingly lost in the process.

  Ace Fever sauntered across the open space, his microphone clutched in his hands, the crowd watching with anticipation. In broken English, he challenged the hillbilly, "You want to fight? You fucker fight me!" He stood at the ready, and finally the hillbilly's eyes seemed to focus on him. It shambled towards him, and Ace backhanded the man across the face, whipping the man's head to the side and knocking his camouflage hat to the ground. But he kept coming. Ace took another swing at the man, and slipped on some blood in the process. His punch hit the man in the shoulder, and had about as much effect as an ant sassing god. The man grabbed Ace in a bear hug and pulled him close. His mouth opened wide, and he bit into the chest of Ace. Ace screamed and struggled to get away from the hillbilly, but all of his 130 pounds wasn't enough to break free of the grasp of the man.

  Jungle Fever broke his bass guitar over the head of the hillbilly, and that's when all hell broke loose in the club. Clara didn't see the rest of what happened, but she crawled to where Courtney was holding his face. Together, they helped each other to their feet, and then pushed their way outside, through drunken and riotous punks and away from the unbridled violence in the club. A bouncer brushed past them, but she doubted that he would be able to stop the violence.

  "Are you okay?" Clara asked. The ringing in her ears and the buzz of the alcohol had her head swimming, and she felt as if she was going to faint. But she didn't... because, as she always liked to put it, fainting is for pussies.

  Courtney shook his head, and tried to focus his eyes before he spoke. "Yeah, I think so. Jesus Christ. What the fuck was that? Did you see that guy?"

  "Did you do something to him?"

  Courtney shook his head a little more, still trying to focus, "No, he just grabbed me and took a bite out of my fucking face. How is it?"

  He removed his tattooed hand from his face and exposed the raw wound, which was still bleeding profusely. Sweat covered his forehead, and steam rose from the blood on his face as it met the night air.

  "Well, you're lucky you're good in bed, because that is going to be one nasty scar. C'mon, we better get you to the hospital. That guy might have had rabies or something."

  Chapter 7: Through a Garden Hose

  Zeke snuck up on the car from behind, secretly hoping that maybe he'd catch a peek of something, maybe a tit or two. It was always practical to sneak up on a car from the rear, and as an added bonus he might just catch a quick visual snatch of flesh, which wouldn't be a terrible thing.

  The car was an '80s model station wagon. The fenders were rusted out, which was hard to see due to the car's classy copper paintjob, which was only made classier by the wood paneling on the side. He laughed inside as he wondered what moron thought it would be a good idea to put fake wood paneling on the side
of a car.

  He moved slowly, squatting down with his gun at the ready. He flinched as the car rocked violently. They must really be going at it, he thought. Zeke crept up the passenger side of the car, heel to toe. He could hear the wet, slopping sounds of intimacy from the cracked window of the passenger side. From all of the slurping noises, he bet the whore could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. There was definitely a chance that he was going to see something.

  As the passenger seat came into view, he caught sight of a large pair of lily white buttocks. The smile that had crept onto his face disappeared, when he caught site of some crimson. The hooker wasn't having sex at all. She was literally eating the man. Facedown in his guts, she wouldn't have even known he was there if a single word hadn't slipped from his mouth like the secrets of a two-year-old. "Jesus."

  The sound caught the hooker's attention, and she swung around, quicker than he would have expected. Her face bashed into the window of the station wagon, smearing blood all over the glass. Zeke flinched backwards, unsure of what to do for the first time in his life. If this had been enemy territory, there wouldn't be any questioning at all... simply a corpse with a bullet in her head, but this wasn't over there. This was home.

  The woman bashed her face into the window again and stuck her fingers out the tiny crack of the window. She was frantic. She spit and slobbered in her efforts to get at him. He leveled his Desert Eagle at her, but didn't pull the trigger. "Stay right there," he commanded weakly. "Stay right there!" he said again with a little of that boot camp authority that had made him so popular in the army.

  She didn't listen. Civilians never listened. In reply she reared back and smashed her face through the passenger side window, sending safety glass pattering to the ground. His finger tensed on the trigger, but he didn't pull it. Instead he backed away as the hooker began crawling out of the passenger seat, a shard of glass sticking out of her eye. She fell to the ground awkwardly, and he heard a crack as a piece of bone jutted out of her right arm.

  "Bath salts. That's what this is. This bitch is on bath salts."

  The woman stood up, unconcerned about the blood that was spurting out of her arm or her damaged eye. "Stay where you fucking are, or I'm going to shoot you in the face!" he yelled. She didn't even seem to hear him. In reply, she raised her good arm in his direction and stumbled toward him. She tried to raise her broken arm, and she was successful... at least halfway. The lower half of her arm dangled down limply just below her elbow.

  That was enough for Zeke. He squeezed the trigger, and sent a round through the woman's knee. For a second, it seemed like the bullet had no effect, but when she took her next shambling step, the knee crumpled and she fell over on her side. Zeke backed up even more, and tripped over the only thing in his yard that no one had bothered to steal, an old garden gnome that had travelled with him wherever he went.

  He cracked his head against the bottom step of his porch, and his vision swam in front of him. Comet trails and floaters tried to block the vision of the hooker crawling toward him, but he could barely make out her outstretched arm reaching for his foot. He attempted to lift the Desert Eagle and fire a round through the woman's head, but the world was spinning, and his shot went wide. He closed his eyes for a second, and tried to blink away the comet trails. He felt the pressure of the woman using his foot for leverage, and then he felt something else.

  When he opened his eyes again, the hooker was gnawing on the end of his boot. He raised the Desert Eagle, closed one eye, which seemed to help, and then squeezed the trigger once more. The hair on the back of the woman's head jerked quickly, and then blood began to spill out of the bullet-sized hole in her forehead.

  Zeke dropped the Desert Eagle in relief and tried to regain his equilibrium. His head still spinning, he kicked the woman off of his foot and pushed her to the side. He heard sirens in the night, and he knew that one of his neighbors had finally called the police. With relief, he relaxed and rested his head on the step of his porch. Before he dozed off, the last words he thought were "through a garden hose."

  Chapter 8: Nightsticks

  Mort staggered under the Interstate Bridge. He was spun around, only to see the bane of every homeless man's existence. The cop in front of him reached for his belt and pulled out his nightstick, a quick flick of his wrist sent Mort to the ground clutching at his knee. Mort sucked air in through his teeth.

  "Get up." The officer pulled him to his feet, and then threw him back down on the ground. Mort wished the cop would make up his mind. The cop kicked over his cart, and Mort decided his best option would be to pull a "deer in the headlights" maneuver and lie completely still. From off to his right, he heard the pained groans of one of his friends. It sounded like his cop buddy had a partner.

  "You can't sleep under the bridge. Get your lazy ass up, and get the fuck out of here," yelled the partner's voice.

  Mort decided he would take one for the team. "Run!" he bellowed. His voice echoed underneath the overpass, and his cry of "run" was repeated throughout the clearing, picked up by the dozen or so homeless men who camped nightly under the overpass. While the cops watched his friends run off into the night, Mort attempted to crawl away. He didn't think his knee was broken, but it certainly wasn't going to be operating at a normal level for a while. Just as he reached the edge of the clearing, the cop that had thrown him to the ground whacked him across the back with his nightstick. He rolled over on his back and put his arm up to ward off another blow.

  The cop, a pudgy, pink-faced man whose uniform strained at the buttons, raised his arm above his head to deliver another blow. In the dull glare of the streetlights, Mort saw a figure charge the officer from behind and knock him to the ground.

  Mort scrambled to his feet and rubbed his knee. "Thanks," he muttered to his savior as he began to run away.

  The man was familiar to him, but he didn't reply. He believed everyone called the guy Dirty Kurt. His fingers were always stained as if he had been scratching in his ass, and he had the most unpleasant odor of any homeless person he had ever had the pleasure of meeting, and he had met a lot of them.

  As Mort turned his back and hobbled away, he heard the cop begin screaming wildly. He turned around briefly to see Dirty Kurt biting on the hand of the cop that had been giving him a beating. The cop's partner appeared and began clubbing the homeless man on the back. Dirty Kurt fell to the side, and the two cops began pummeling him. Mort should have left then, but something didn't quite seem right. Dirty Kurt made no move to defend himself. Every time he was hit, he just got back up again, gnashing his teeth and reaching for the cops.

  Mort couldn't just walk away; Dirty Kurt had saved him. The least he could do was take a little of the punishment so it wasn't two on one. He hurried back as quick as he could. When he got close enough, he yelled, "Hey, asshole. Why don't you try that with me?"

  The pink-faced cop's partner turned to look at him. He had a weasel-ish look about him, and he sneered right at Mort as he fixed his grip on his nightstick. "You want some too? You should have crawled back into the sewer while you had the chance."

  Weasel walked towards him, but was stopped when Dirty Kurt grabbed him by the ankle. Dirty Kurt sank what was left of his teeth into the thigh of the cop. The cop screamed and shoved at Dirty Kurt's face with his free hand, while his pink-faced partner whacked Kurt a few times more. The cop that was being attacked fell to the ground, and Kurt immediately began crawling up the cop's prone body, scratching and pummeling him in the process.

  Pink-face tried to pull him off, but Dirty Kurt wouldn't budge. He began gnashing his yellow teeth, and biting at the cop on the ground. Without hesitation, Mort moved to help the cop get Dirty Kurt off of the man. There was clearly something wrong with Kurt, more than just your classic anti-authoritarian violence.

  "Easy there, Kurt. Let him go, man."

  With the help of the other officer, they pulled Kurt off the cop. Weasel got up off the ground, and checked on his bites and scrapes whil
e his partner held Dirty Kurt on the ground. Weasel gave Dirty Kurt a kick in the ribs. It didn't seem to bother him.

  "C'mon, man. You ain't got to do that," Mort pleaded.

  Weasel waved a finger in his face and said, "You shut your goddamn mouth. What the fuck are you guys on down here anyway?"

  Pink-face ignored the questioning and said, "Help me out here, Dave. Let's get this guy cuffed. He's giving me the fucking creeps."

  Weasel and Pink-face managed to cuff Dirty Kurt's hands behind him, but he was still too much to handle. While they began the process of cuffing his legs, Mort tried to wander off discretely. Weasel hadn't forgot about him. "You stand right there, old timer. We got some questions for you."

  He did what he was told. It's not like he could have escaped on foot. His knee was swelling up quickly, and he knew he would be limping for a week or two.

  Weasel and Pink-face had Dirty Kurt bound like a calf, his hands behind his back and cuffed to his feet. They picked him up like a suitcase and attempted to drag him to the police car. When he started gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth, they dropped him on his stomach, and Pink-face went to the back of the car, popped the trunk, and produced a nylon mesh hood, which they quickly cinched over Dirty Kurt's head.

  They picked him up once more and placed him in the back of the car. Weasel turned to Mort and said, "You're next."

  Mort looked at the man as if he were crazy. "You must be out of your mind if you think I'm going to sit back there with that man!"

  Pink-face placed his hand on the butt of his nightstick. Mort looked at him, and he knew there was no getting out of it.

  Weasel put a restraining hand on Pink-face and said to Mort, "Do yourself a favor and just get in the back before we have to put you back there. I appreciate your help, so why don't you just let me be nice to you? Huh? Save us all some trouble here, pal."