Kung Fu Factory

by Crimefactory

  Jinjing said, “Look at them, sister. Back-to-back. They fight like a single, four-fisted organism. Rearing up like a spider with limbs hacked off. They must be separated.”

  “How do we do that?” Jiaxing asked.

  “Together,” Jinjing said.

  6. The Female of the Species…

  Jiaxing draws the brothers to her with a smile and a vulgar gesture. Kwan Wong is momentarily struck by his half-sister's beauty before he sees the cruelty in her grin. Gee Yuan is not quite put on the back foot like his brother and, uncharacteristically, he's off, vaulting onto and across rooftops after Jiaxing. Kwan Wong brings up the rear, cursing his sheepishness.

  Jiaxing hurls herself across roofs, curling and rolling and contorting her lithe frame into virtual facsimiles of the primates she imitates. It's off-putting – her pretty face curled up into a monkey sneer. Adding to the unorthodoxy is the drunken monkey movements she throws in, awkward jerky spasms that add to the unpredictability. She turns and lashes out at the closest brother at random times on this rooftop pursuit, dipping into a leather bag she has strapped to her thigh, pulling free a handful of feather-tipped needles and unleashing them like a sudden downpour upon the brothers. Kwan Wong and Gee Yuan are themselves forced to contort and roll and leap in an effort to dodge the surely-poisoned missiles hurtling their way.

  Jiaxing, perched like a chimp at the top of a spire, laughs at her half-brothers, amazed they have come so far on the poor skills they show her. Clearly, Kwan Wong, the slightly shorter of the two is the aggressor despite the fact he was slow in the chase. She sees the anger build in him as she shatters roof shingles and spins their ceramic shards their way. Gee Yuan shields his eyes with a forearm and a crescent-shaped ceramic shard lodges above his wrist. Kwan Wong steps in front of his brother and, arms whirling, shatters all further projectiles with knife-edge chops.

  They are both cut now. First blood is hers.

  Kwan Wong clenches his sliced-up fists, watches his blood fall from his knuckles and spatter the rooftop. Gee Yuan pulls the tile shard from his forearm and hurls it back toward his sister. She evades it with ease, rolling forward, leaping up and landing between the brothers. Jiaxing's small hands emit a sorcerous glow as she double-hammerfists the roofing under Gee Yuan's feet. The rooftop fissures and splits under Gee Yuan and he tumbles down into the domicile below. He hits the ground hard and chunks of roof and wall and supporting structure come down with him. A spike of supporting beam hurtles toward his head. He rolls, but is not quite fast enough: the beam has torn through the right side of his head, removing his ear and a section of scalp.

  Kwan Wong's first thought is for his brother. He stands over the hole in the roof, peering down. It is the split-second Jiaxing needs and she unleashes monkey claws at him – raking palm strikes – targeting his eyes.

  Kwan Wong blocks, blocks, blocks again, but Jiaxing sweeps his leg and down he goes. Hard. She's all over him then and her speed is infernal. She chops and rakes and gouges at him. She grapples him, rolling him over sharp pieces of fractured tile and wood.

  For the first time ever, Fu Kwan Wong is utterly, completely, overwhelmed.

  Jiaxing smashes at him – breaking his nose, fracturing orbital sockets, cheekbones. Mashing lips, snapping teeth.

  Kwan Wong pokes his tongue right through a hole in his cheek and laughs as the blows rain on down. Jiaxing stops her attack momentarily, gives her half-brother a quizzical look, his ruined face beaming at her.

  Kwan Wong laughs again at his sister's hesitation then spits a mouthful of blood in Jiaxing's face.

  Jiaxing wipes blood out of her eyes, licks it from her lips, her chin. Her fists glow again, the light strangely soft and warm, lantern-like. As she brings them down, another pair of hands clasps her head; one under her chin, the other at her temple. Her neck snaps as her head is twisted right around to face her spine. The last thing she sees is Gee Yuan, blood-covered, sections of skull exposed. No remorse in his eyes as he slays her.

  Jiaxing's body slumps over Kwan Wong's. Her backwards head faces a looming Gee Yuan, her eyes bug-eyed with shock, whether at her predicament or her half-brother's half-peeled head we will never know.

  Gee Yuan rolls Jiaxing off Kwan Wong and kneels beside his brother. Kwan Wong keeps on laughing through his mashed-up mouth.

  “What's so funny?” Gee Yuan asks.

  “Y-you got your childhood wish.”

  “What wish is that, brother?”

  “That we weren't identical. You with your new half-face. Me with my new...no-face. There will be no confusion as to who is who and which is which anymore.”

  Gee Yuan gives a sad smile, touches the right side of his own face. His palm and fingers come away dripping with red.

  Kwan Wong says, “You look horrifying. Like death embodied.”

  Gee Yuan pulls his brother to his feet, says, “And you look repulsive and terrifying. Your face will turn the strongest of stomachs, weaken the stiffest of knees.”

  7. Striking With Chaos

  Death and Fear stand over the body of their sister, the woman who terraformed them into something more than men, into things perhaps part elemental, part myth.

  Kwan Wong looks at his brother. “You have nothing to say? No apologies to give?”

  Gee Yuan says nothing. He just drips blood and stares at Jaixing's body. He watches, kneels, then finally says, “She still breathes.”

  “Impossible.”

  “No, she still breathes. Look. Her breast rises and falls.”

  Kwan Wong kneels, studies the body of the sister he assumed was a corpse. He breast, indeed, rises and falls. “Impossible!” he says again. He shoves past his brother.

  Gee Yuan wipes blood from his eyes with a sleeve and watches as Kwan Wong sinks lower and lower toward Jiaxing.

  Kwan Wong is clearly suspicious. He looks like a man witnessing a miracle. He puts his head to Jiaxing's chest, a cauliflowered-ear twitches as it listens. He says, “I hear breathing.”

  Gee Yuan rolls his eyes. “Yes. I told you.”

  “No. I hear breathing.”

  Gee Yuan steps forward.

  Kwan Wong says, “No. Stop.”

  Gee Yuan stops dead, almost slipping in a puddle of his own blood as he does so.

  Kwan Wong reaches down, slowly opens Jiaxing's robe. He loosens it at the waist. He pulls it wide.

  8. Binary Horrors.

  She is more beautiful than any woman Kwan Wong has laid eyes on. From the narrow dark arches of her eyebrows to the fullness of her lips, to the uncharacteristically wide, almond-shaped eyes. Hers is a face for which strong men would war, weak men would pine and women would beg. It is a face more beautiful even than her sisters.

  There she is – Zhang Jinjing. The secret sister no-one has ever seen.

  Zhang Jinjing, nothing more than a miniature head in place of her sister's right breast. A beautiful, perfect, miniature head, in control of the body it shared with Jiaxing now that Jiaxing is dead.

  Fu Kwan Wong is frozen by the sight – the beauty of Jinjing's face juxtaposed by the horror that is its placement.

  Jinjing says, “Thank you, brother, for freeing me.”

  Jiaxing's arm – now Jinjing's – shoots up, digs into Kwan Wong's neck, forcing it down towards Jinjing's opening mouth, a rope of spit bridging her full lips.

  Kwan Wong sees needle-teeth, incisors like blades, then his throat is in her mouth, then there is spurting blood, as he feels the hole where his throat once was, then there is Gee Yuan's arms around him, and then, as his heart beats its last, pumping yet more blood free from the wound, there is nothing.

  9. The Singular Horrors

  Jinjing forces her sister's body up, so it rises zombie-like. It strikes monkey poses more undead than drunken, and the body lurches and shuffles forward, swinging wild strikes.

  Gee Yuan drops his brother's body, wipes the tears from his eyes and engages Jinjing, his sister in both blood and disfigurement. Singular horrors, binary opposit
es, the siblings begin a strange, monstrous duel, the first of many Fu Gee Yuan will fight on his own.

  The Jade Fist Bounty by Frank Bill

  Just as Hazard, Kentucky’s wire-held mufflers and chipped-brick cross streets omitted from

  the rearview, an onyx Mercedes leached onto Black Tiger’s bumper and forced him off the side

  of the road.

  Pulling the keys from the Camry’s ignition, he levered the door open. Highway grit

  ricocheted from the tires of log and coal trucks speeding down the double lanes as he stood

  behind the Toyota recognizing the two men who held their ground in front of the dusted Benz.

  The outline to Black Tiger’s right was Kwan, he’d thumbed a Glock 17 from his waist. To his

  left was Crane, he held a blue white Igloo cooler. Each of the men wore pleated slacks, white silk

  shirts imprinted with a feverish red and orange phoenix, they’d matching sunglasses wrapped

  around skulls the tint of wood glue, long twines of hair suctioned upon their crowns and drained

  down between their shoulders.

  They were headhunters for Jade Fist Society, a Chinese crime syndicate who dealt in

  prostitution, black market movies and payments collected from small business owners, called it

  protection.

  Humidity weighed down on the men, splotched the fibers beneath their clothing and Kwan

  questioned Black Tiger, “Think you can do what you did to our people, evade to the states?”

  Back in China, Black Tiger and his teacher, Fu, left several members of Jade Fist like

  pincushions after a storeowner, Fu’s uncle Chang, refused to pay for their security. They tried

  to coerce Chang’s daughter, Yang Ling, to compensate what he wouldn’t on her back.

  Black Tiger didn’t miss a beat, “Only we teach lesson to your droves of filth.”

  A bounty was placed on Fu and Black Tiger’s lives. They sought refuge with Chang, Fu’s

  master. He’d ties to the triads. Sent word for immediate removal. A restaurant owner in the states

  by the name of Shong got wind of the situation, needed men with high level fighting skills to

  enforce authority for his bookie operation in Kentucky and Indiana.

  Fu and Black Tiger took the offer, Shong paid for their passage to the states.

  “Lesson?” Images of limbs curved like Celtic knots with needles staggered at varied angles

  flashed through Kwan’s mind. “Then make sense why we follow you to here. We bare a lesson.”

  Not taking his eyes from Black Tiger, he snapped his fingers and told Crane, “Show him.”

  Crane laid the Igloo cooler on the Mercedes’ hood. Pressed the button on the side, his right

  hand rattled ice, gripped the freezing strands of hair, pulled the shape that it was attached to from

  inside, and held it up away from his body as red dripped cold.

  It was Yang Ling, Fu’s niece.

  In traditional Chinese teaching, one’s teacher was like a father. Loyalty was bone and blood.

  Seeing the lifeless head of his teacher’s niece was equal to viewing his own sister. Black Tiger

  didn’t blink, the element of fire singed his frame, expanded the gate below his navel. He rooted

  the ball of his left foot into the pavement, gripped the keys in his right.

  And Crane said, “You maim our people for nothing. Now we add you head for payment.”

  Then placed the head back into the cooler.

  Black Tiger measured his distance with their movements.

  With a pitched laugh Kwan said, “Know how hard is to travel with head in a cooler, baggage

  claim was female dog!”

  Flinching his left shoulder, Black Tiger raised his left hand chest high, masked the throw that

  came from his right hand, the keys were a 120 mile per hour volley scorching Kwan’s vision.

  Kwan hollered, “Fuck!” Stumbled and raised the Glock with blurred sight. Sheered a spike-

  sized hole through the Camry’s rear windshield. Black Tiger dropped to the fragmented

  pavement. The bark of gunfire rimmed overhead as he spun counter clockwise and sprung

  forward like a bobcat.

  A fist jabbed just below Kwan’s sternum, pushed a dry cough up his throat, a second attack

  shattered his windpipe, blocked his inhale, the third mashed his nose.

  Kwan was a snorting hog drowning in slop, released the Glock, the index finger and thumb of

  both hands channel locked around his throat.

  Black Tiger had ensnared the air within Kwan’s chest. He caught Kwan’s pistol with his right.

  Circled his movements around Kwan’s complexion, stepped into him with the butt of the Glock

  cutting sideways across Kwan’s chest, Black Tiger’s left palm hit him in the gut, thrust Kwan

  into the highway.

  A horn roared. Brakes locked up. Tread charcoaled a double trail down the pavement as a

  corroded semi of notched lumber used Kwan for a bug shield.

  Without warning, Crane impaled Black Tiger’s shoulder, an arrowed piece of steel connected

  to a chain twisted arthritic pain through his nerve endings. He flashed back to a knotted wax

  wood staff whelping and straightening his posture, spreading his legs, keeping knees over his

  toes and his eyes forward. Fu, his teacher, commanding, “Re-act, no think!”

  Now, Black Tiger faced Crane, breathed through the hurt. Reaction coiled his left arm over

  the chain and he jerked the nine-section-whip from Crane’s grip. Raised the Glock, jerked the

  trigger twice. Brass kicked from the chamber and lead torched Crane’s chest.

  Pushing the pistol into his waist, Black Tiger ripped the darted end of the chain from his

  shoulder, fevered toxins wobbled him to kneeling over Crane. Heat erupted down his arm. He

  knew if Jade Fist had found him, they’d found Fu and he asked, “How you find us?”

  Crimson laughter warmed Black Tiger’s complexion. And Crane said, “You need ask

  man who pay for passage.”

  *

  Dried leaves and rotted limbs crumpled beneath the men’s steps, packing their arsenal they saw

  the cabin through the breech of timber and proceeded.

  In the cabin, uneasiness quaked through Fu’s bones as he glanced at the girthed slabs of steel

  that crossed on the wall above the stove. He thought about the Fukien temple of his tutelage as a

  boy, the countryside where his discipline evolved with the Wine Maker Chow, the deal he’d

  taken to leave his homeland and evade Jade Fist Society.

  Turning with a tin kettle of boiling water, Fu poured the fuming liquid into Mr. Shong’s cup,

  recognizing that even with all of his training he still lost his niece. He knew she was no more.

  Knew Jade Fist’s trespass was mere steps away, all because of the man who’d paid for his

  departure.

  A string from a tea bag hung over the rim of Shong’s cup. He smirked with lips drawn thin,