by Dusty Sharp
Austin glanced up at the water tower and saw the faint lightness of Gene’s face, deep within the blackness of the rusted out water tank. He nodded in Gene’s direction before ducking behind the building that housed the motel office. The glow of the bike’s headlight indicated that Babyface was headed back his way, as Austin snuck around the back side of the office building. The motorcycle passed across his narrow field of view as he looked through the alley between the office and the first bungalow. He heard the bike come to a stop. The motor turned off. Boots on gravel as the rider dismounted.
“Oscar!” the guy called out. It was a voice Austin wouldn’t have matched with a man of Babyface’s size. He almost sounded like a kid, high-pitched and whining the way teenagers do when they're feeling inconvenienced.
Austin crept up the alley, along the side of the motel office. He stopped just short of where the glass panels of the building’s mid-century modern facade began, and peered through. Within were the motel’s reception desk and period sofa where he and Gene had shared a drink only hours before. Austin looked past the reception area and through the glass walls of the far side, to the two bikes parked there, and the giant towering over them. Babyface was walking around both bikes, looking around in every direction while hollering, “Oscar!”
Oscar’s no longer with us, Austin thought.
Babyface’s gaze swung around toward the motel office, his eyes passing directly across Austin’s position. But Austin knew he would be nearly invisible through the glare of several panes of glass, so he stood still as Babyface’s gaze came to rest on something beyond his position.
Austin slowly turned his head to the left and saw that the front door of the first bungalow was hanging open.
Babyface had homed in on the open door and was now heading in that direction, which would put Austin directly in view as he passed in front of the mouth of the alley. So Austin quietly retreated to the back of the building, slipping around the corner just before Babyface passed across the opposite end of the alley.
“Oscar!”
Austin shook his head in silence. Amateurs. He hoped he wouldn’t have to hurt this guy too badly, he was obviously just a kid, despite his humongous size.
As Babyface disappeared through the open door of the bungalow, Austin crossed the alley to the back corner of the tiny motel unit. He moved stealthily around its perimeter, circling all the way to the front of the small building, and took up position just outside the front door. He sucked in his beer belly and pressed himself up against the wall as tightly as he could. He passed the knife to his left hand, opposite the door opening.
“Oscar! Where the fuck are you!” The door swung inward and the massive figure stepped out, hurrying past where Austin was waiting.
In one swift movement, Austin slipped up behind him and brought the blade around in front of him, pressing it against his fleshy throat. “Not one word, Babyface,” he said calmly. Austin wasn’t used to being the smaller guy in a fight. This guy must have been six-six or so, maybe an inch taller than he was.
“Oscar? Hey! How’d you know my name?”
Austin rolled his eyes. “Just a good guess I suppose. Now shut the fuck up. Don’t even move or I’ll slice open your throat and pull your tongue through like a necktie.”
Austin felt the guy’s muscles go rigid. “What did you do to Oscar?”
And then all hell broke loose.
Hell Breaks Loose
One of Austin’s strategic advantages was that adversaries tended to misjudge his quickness, due primarily to his size. People just don’t expect someone so tall and broad (and increasingly portly) to be as quick as he was. It had been a tremendous asset to him, allowing him a split-second advantage before his opponent realized the big guy was already in motion. Unfortunately, that misconception can go both ways. And for Austin, this time it did.
Before he knew it, Babyface had spun out of his grip. Austin’s reflexes recovered quickly enough to apply pressure to the knife against Babyface’s throat, but he was too late, the blade only grazing the fleshy tissue as Babyface spun free.
Nor did he stop there. Babyface continued his movement in one lightning fast, fluid motion, his fist coming around in a looping roundhouse, connecting with the side of Austin’s face. Luckily, the quick movement hadn’t afforded him the opportunity to put his full strength and weight behind the blow. So instead of knocking Austin’s head clean off his shoulders, it was merely an explosion of pain and light on the left side of his face, that left him staggering backward from the blow.
Babyface pressed forward but Austin had already recovered, dropping into a combat stance, wielding the knife in front of him. The larger man paused just out of the reach of Austin’s blade. A grin spread across his face as he drew a large Bowie knife from a sheath on his belt. “Where the fuck is Oscar?” he whined.
Austin was still having a tough time reconciling that voice to the oversized man who owned it. “He’s out of the fight. Didn’t have the stomach for it,” Austin said as they circled, sizing each other up, feinting and ducking as they probed each other’s defenses.
Austin flicked his eyes in the direction of the water tower and saw that they were currently hidden from Gene’s view, as the water tower was positioned behind the motel office building from where he and Babyface were squaring up. As they maneuvered, he began subtly working his way toward the alley between the office and the bungalow.
For all of his size, strength and speed, Austin could tell Babyface wasn’t an experienced knife-fighter. He stood with his guard open, his knife hand held back as if wound up for a pitch. His free hand stretched out before him, as a shield. The thing is, hands and arms are made of skin and muscle, soft tissue and tendons. They made a ripe target.
Austin made a quick slash with the chute knife, opening up a bright red fillet on Babyface’s forearm before moving back into his combat stance, knife out before him, free hand held close, guarding his neck and throat.
It may as well have been a mosquito bite. Babyface grunted dismissively at the wound, continuing to parry. He made a clumsy lunge with his own knife, which Austin easily blocked with his blade.
“Did you kill Oscar?” Austin didn’t answer. For him, the conversation had switched from words to steel.
As they circled round and round, Austin kept working him deeper into the alley, toward the opening at the back of the gap between the office and the bungalow. They were twenty feet away. Austin saw an opening as Babyface shifted his weight, and lunged in with a piercing strike to the shoulder. This time he heard Babyface gasp, but otherwise showed no signs of pain or fatigue. He kept moving. Ten feet away now.
“Now you die!” Babyface yelled as he pressed forward, quick as a cat. Austin slashed at his face as he moved in, slicing through the fat of his left cheek. Again, the damage looked significant but had little affect on the other man’s forward progress as he plowed into Austin like a bowling ball striking a pin. Huge arms wrapped around him as the momentum of Babyface’s gargantuan body lifted Austin and slammed him to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. Both men dropped their knives on impact.
Babyface had landed on top, the sheer weight of him denying Austin movement. Austin tried to buck him off, to no avail. He managed to get a few good punches in to the giant’s face, but his position on the ground prevented him from being able to put much leverage into the blows. The son of a bitch had the ground game of a champion cage fighter as he moved up, straddling Austin’s body until he had him in a full mount. He managed to catch Austin’s right arm and held it in an iron grip, then started working on the other arm. Babyface swept his right leg forward and trapped Austin’s left arm under a gorilla-sized knee. He tried to buck the larger man off but he was pinned down solid.
Babyface’s free arm went to work, the ham-sized fist raining down blows to the side of Austin’s face. One. Two. Three. Each blow was like a car crash, an explosion of pain to his head. His left eye was already swelling shut. He thought he felt a cheekb
one crack. A few more of these and it would be lights out.
Austin managed to cock his head slightly back and rolled his good eye around, to try to see to the end of the alley. That was a mistake. His outstretched neck was an invitation that Babyface couldn’t resist, as his right hand moved to Austin’s neck and closed down over his windpipe, squeezing it like an anaconda. Austin’s beard was also caught in the grip, he could feel the hairs pulling from his chin as he struggled.
At least the blows to the side of his head had stopped. But now he was choking, and he hadn’t even recovered yet from having the wind knocked out of him on the take-down. Austin could feel panic starting to set in, now only seconds away from loosing consciousness.
But Austin had noticed something when he had taken the chance to glance back toward the end of the alley. When Babyface had tackled him, the forward momentum had carried both men further into the alley. Now they were only about a foot from the back corner of the office building.
Babyface leaned his body forward in an effort to apply more pressure to Austin’s throat. As he did, Austin channeled every ounce of his remaining strength into thrusting his pelvis up and forward. With Babyface off balance, he managed to move them about a foot. Austin’s eye rolled to the right and could see that he was now just about even with the corner of the building.
But he was out of air. It was too little, too late. His vision was starting to blur, blackness setting in.
Sensing victory, Babyface bore down even harder. With no strength left in Austin’s body, Babyface moved his other hand to his throat, leaving Austin’s arm waving limply. Both huge hands tightened on his throat as Babyface leaned forward to exert more of his body weight onto the choke.
As he slipped out of consciousness, Austin’s last thought was that he was going to die of a broken neck instead of asphyxiation.
He faintly heard a gun shot.
And then he was gone.
Guardian Angel
Austin came to, gasping for air. Which was nearly impossible due to both the pain around his throat and the massive weight on his chest. As his mind swam up out of the darkness, he heard grunting, and felt the weight on top of him shifting.
And then the weight was gone, and he could breathe. Sweet, crisp, glorious air. He gulped in great quantities of it, despite the painful protestations of his bruised throat. He opened his eyes but all was dark.
After a moment his eyes adjusted and he saw where he was, the memory of his situation flooding back to him. Gene was struggling with Babyface’s body, trying to drag it away from him. It was a Herculean task, at over 300 pounds of dead weight. “Gene,” he croaked.
The old man turned toward him, eyes wide, mouth agape. “Welcome back! How was your nap?” he yelled.
Babyface’s lifeless legs still straddled him haphazardly. Austin pushed them away and sat up. He scooted his butt a foot or so backward so he could lean against the wall of the motel office. He looked toward the other end of the corpse. A ragged mass of exploded flesh was attached to its shoulders where its head should be. Austin touched his own face and realized he was also covered in it. He pulled his fingers away and saw them smeared with blood and gray chunks of brain matter.
His strength was slowly coming back to him as he watched Gene roll the body over once more. The old man picked up his rifle, came over and leaned against the wall, then slid down to take a seat next to him.
“I thought I’d lost ya.” Gene pulled a hanky out of a pocket and passed it to Austin.
“Water,” Austin croaked as he wiped his face. Speaking hurt about as much as breathing.
“Back in the trailer. Hang on though, I might have a little somthin’ right here…” He felt Gene squirming beside him, heard him grunt, followed by the metallic sound of a lid un-threading. A silvery metal flask appeared in front of him.
Austin took a small sip. Flames raced down his throat like a chimney fire. “Aaahhh!!” he screamed hoarsely.
He took another drink. A sizable slug of it this time.
“It’s just the cheap shit,” Gene explained. “If I knew I’d be sharing it I’d have sprung for whiskey in a glass bottle, not plastic.”
Austin tried to laugh with him—it came out as only a series of feeble grunts. But the liquor was working. After the initial burn, it was starting to soothe and numb his throat. Ironically, his head was clearing. He waved the flask in the direction of the corpse. “Tell me,” he said, still using words sparingly.
“Well I knew something was going down,” Gene began. “I could hear that knucklehead hollerin’ for Oscar or some such. But you sonsabitches decided to lock horns outside my line of sight. I wasn’t sure what was going on. But I knowed you was somewhere back in this alley, I could hear the scufflin’.”
Austin nodded his understanding and took another swallow of the cheap whiskey. He looked over at Gene, saw him fiddling with the lever action of his rifle as he spoke. His hands were trembling. Austin handed the flask back to him.
“So I just kept the corner of this building in my sights. I figured waiting to see if you guys would emerge there was a better gamble than taking my eyes off the situation long enough to climb down the ladder and relocate. I didn’t realize how much trouble you were in until I saw the top of your head poke out there on the ground. And you looked about done for.” Gene paused long enough to knock back a swallow from the flask. “Then I saw that bastid’s head appear over yours as he was leanin’ into ya. I didn’t think about it. I just took the shot.” He looked down at the flask, offered it back to Austin.
Austin waved it away. “Gene, I’m sorry. I never meant for you to get mixed up in this. To have to take someone out.” Austin looked over at Gene, fixing him with a stare from one light blue eye as the other was swollen shut. “It’s a hell of a thing, killin’ a man.”
“Seriously? You’re dropping movie lines on me?”
Austin waved a hand weakly, in mock surrender. “Sorry. I do that sometimes. Kinda like a nervous tic. It’s just…I’m not sure if you want that on your shoulders.”
“Oh for Chrissakes! Save me the sermon, son. I’ve seen the god-damned elephant! When you were still shit’n in your drawers.” Austin briefly saw anger flash in Gene’s eyes, something he’d never seen there before. And the next moment, Gene’s fury was already fading, his tone softening along with it. “You know that I knew your old man, but you and I have never talked about where we first met.” Gene paused for a moment, took another swig from the flask, then looked back at Austin. “We were in the shit together.”
“’Nam?”
“No, butt-fuck Egypt. Of course Vietnam, ya numbskull!”
“Dad never talked much about it.”
“Most don’t,” Gene said as he stuck the flask in his shirt pocket. He hauled himself up to his feet with considerable effort, his arthritic knees popping like pistol shots. He offered a hand to Austin, who took it and was pulled to his feet.
“I figured that. I’m sorry if I trod where I shouldn’t have. I just know what a burden it is to carry, even when its a piece of shit like this,” he said, gesturing toward Babyface’s corpse. “A fool would say it gets easier with each one, but I’m here to tell you the load only gets heavier, the more bodies you pile onto your back. Even strong men can bend under that kind of weight.”
Gene had no answer to this, other than a quick nod.
Austin’s legs were still a bit wobbly, but it was starting to pass. He hobbled in a drunken circle, trying to get the blood flowing into his legs, driving out the pins and needles. “There’s still two more out there,” Austin said, as they looked down at the dead Rattler at their feet.
“Ayup.”
They didn’t have to wait long. They were rifling through Babyface’s pockets for ID or a phone when the low rumble of big Harley-Davidson engines rose faintly from the east. Austin stopped his rummaging and started running for the open ground at the end of the alleyway. It turned into more of a hobble before he’d gone two steps and realize
d how beaten up he was. “Find some cover and keep that radio on!” he yelled over his shoulder, his voice still hoarse from Babyface’s death grip on his throat.
Three Down
Austin burst into the open ground at the far end of the alley and hobbled as fast as he could out toward the huge motel sign. He was trying to stay low as he crossed the parking area, but he knew from the sound that the two Rattlers were still a good distance out. There was a low brick wall encircling the base of the sign, which he climbed over and crouched within. It wasn’t the best cover but it would have to do. He hunkered behind the low wall and peeked over the top, training his gaze eastward, toward where Route 66 disappeared into the darkness.
He could just make out the glow of approaching headlights, their sources still hidden from view by a rise in the road where it passed over a culvert. He watched as the lights grew, then appeared to slow. The lights shone back and forth in haphazard directions, indicating that the bikers were circling an area, checking something out. Looks like they’ve found the cable guy, Austin thought to himself, as he reached for the radio that had been clipped to his belt, to tell Gene. But the radio was gone; he must have lost it during the scuffle with Babyface.
Austin scanned the lifeless buildings of Amboy, searching for Gene, but saw no sign of him. He hoped the old man had found cover, far enough away to keep him safe from what was coming. The Rattlers now knew they had a man down, possibly two, and Austin expected they would come in with more caution this time—and more anger. He would no longer have the element of surprise.
After a few minutes, the glow from the headlights began to grow again in the distance. The rumble of engines grew louder as the two bikes crested the rise over the culvert and sped toward Amboy. Austin made one last survey of the empty town and the approaching bikes, and hunkered lower behind the rock wall.
