The Golden Goose of Los Angeles Extended Edition

by Travis Adams Irish

crouched in a position with its front legs dipped down, and hind legs tensed, clearly ready to strike.

 

  Despite the ominous presence of the dog, it only scratches the surface of Bart’s fear. The animal is wearing black and white Dragon Skin Armor around its body. Bart twists his head to the side in disbelief, noticing that the dog is also wearing a carbon fiber helmet, but unlike the body armor, this has a custom design. Its face is indeed a wretched thing. The helmet has satanic horns protruding from the ears, completely red and wicked, pointing forward with the dog’s line of vision. There are red LEDs within the helmet that cover the dog’s eyes, making it look like a hound of hell. Bart’s hands begin to tremble as he sees the Satanic, dragon-like design that covers the snout and head of the dog.

 

  He feels himself getting ill, gradually inspecting the dog’s armor for vulnerabilities that might afford him a kill…and finding none. The animal is protected by the helmet at its snout and head, while the black and white body armor protects its throat and other vital organs.

 

  The voracious beast moves forward gradually, growling louder as if it knows that the armor makes it impervious to harm. Bart backs up steadily, aiming his submachine gun at the dog carefully, attempting to find the slightest weakness in the armor. He selects the legs as his target, but the dog begins to trot forward, forcing him to back up faster, and recalculate his shot. Just when Bart is reaching for the trigger, he hears a gunshot from behind him, and feels a terrible heat in his right leg. The enforcer extends his arms out to the sides, and finds himself falling, wondering for a moment if he has died.

 

  Within a moment, his body crashes hard on the cement in the pit ten feet below the surface. The wounded enforcer finds himself on his back with a middle-aged Italian man pointing a pistol at his face. He closes his eyes, waiting for the end to come. Then, as if in response to his surrender, the growling rises up again from the tunnels behind him.

 

  “PLEASE! PLEASE!” Bart cries out to Vincent, not wanting to be killed by the dogs. “Mercy! SHOW MERCY!” He begs as his body lies with his legs draped halfway across Todd’s unmoving corpse.

 

  “Sorry, man.” Vincent states with a blank stare. “You pissed them off! Now you’ll have to deal with them.” He shuffles to the left and uses his foot to slide the submachine gun out of Bart’s reach, and then immediately ascends the ladder, allowing the dogs to take care of business.

 

  When Bart looks up, all he sees are three satanic faces with snarling mouths, coming to finish him in their ritualistic manner.

 

  Rory reaches down into the water and delicately grips Tina’s slender shoulder, attempting to haul her up to the surface of the pool. He soon realizes that he will need to grapple her entire abdomen to perform a proper rescue. Upon maneuvering deeper into the water, Rory notices a red trail at the back of her head, diluting itself slowly through osmosis. He ignores the fresh blood and wraps his arm gently around the young woman, being careful of her recently broken ribs.

 

  With a few quick strokes, he is able to bring her to the surface, and is pleased when he hears the young woman take a deep breath. Rory tries to maintain his grip close to her abdomen so that he can avoid the pain of constricting her chest.

 

  From his seat in the gazebo, Teddy The Suit feels that something is off. He gets to his feet slowly and steps a few paces closer to Chandler, who is scanning the surface of the water with his pistol.

 

  “Don’t shoot The Goose!” Teddy orders like a scornful father. “We haven’t even made enough profit to break even on him yet! Let’s think about this for a minute, Chandler.” The older gangster says in a magnanimous tone, holding his hands out to his sides.

 

  Chandler turns back to Teddy and gives him a look of disbelief, raising his eyebrows as though asking if he is serious. An explosive burst of blood shoots forth from Teddy’s right nipple as the foreboding sound of a sniper rifle once again shatters the silence of the morning. Teddy’s body jolts forward and to the left as the .50 caliber round strikes his upper right shoulder, pushing everything through the right side of his chest at one-thousand feet per second. Chandler jumps backwards as Teddy’s body slams into the side of gazebo from the velocity of the bullet.

  “Pezzloni’s not fuckin’ poisoned!” Chandler yells to his enforcers as he scrambles toward the house. “He’s up on the roof with a Barrett! Call back the rest of the team, we’re at war!”

 

  Chandler and his men move to the safety of the house behind the gazebo, flattening themselves against the wall to avoid sniper rifle fire from the house above.

 

  Rory is stunned to see Teddy torn apart by the sniper rifle, and he shudders from head to toe at the thought of dying in that manner. He turns away from the body, and looks toward the front of the estate, noticing that there are no guards standing between them and freedom. The window of opportunity seems so impossible that he feels himself reacting immediately, kicking toward the side of the pool with Tina in tow, so that they can make a run for the limousines.

 

  When they reach the ledge at the far side of the pool, Rory hears a horrid thud just ten feet from their position. He turns and recognizes the body of a South African man that he’d seen earlier. The lifeless man now lies in a heap on the opposite side of the gazebo, having been tossed off the diving board to the cement below by Pezzloni or one of his enforcers.

 

  The sight of this body causes Rory to panic somewhat, and he unintentionally squeezes Tina around her broken ribs, causing her to cry out in pain.

 

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Rory apologizes immediately, releasing his grip, and adjusting it to clutch her abdomen.

 

  Despite her cries of pain, Rory remains in a mode of action, first pulling himself out of the pool, and then dragging Tina immediately behind him by her right arm. Once they are on solid ground, he wraps her right arm around his neck, and begins to carry her to the safety of the limousines.

 

  Rory feels blessed with each step away from the feuding gangsters, seeing freedom on the horizon, but his hopes are immediately shattered by an evil presence. Three German Shepherds approach from around the corner of the house, each of them clad in black and white, Dragon Skin Body Armor. The young man feels squeamish as he notices that their helmets have satanic horns and dragon faces. Their eyes seem faintly red from the LEDs on each mask, but the effect is dissipated by the bright sunlight.

 

  The dogs form a tight pack as Rory and Tina approach, showing that they have no intention of letting anyone past them. Rory inspects their armor for a moment, trying to find any weaknesses or openings. After a quick glance, he determines that the dogs are only vulnerable at the legs, and that a submachine gun would be his best defense. The young man feels unprotected and weak with his bare torso exposed to the dogs, and searches the area for any signs of a firearm. This inspection is short-lived as the dogs begin to charge, and Rory instinctively moves back toward the safety of the pool. He scoops up Tina by the legs and shoulders, and sprints at top speed for the pool like a young man trying to prank his girlfriend with an unexpected cannonball. The dogs give chase immediately, but stop when they near the edge of the water, watching Rory and Tina as they dive to safety.

 

  Rory is filled with dread when they reenter the pool, assuming that he will have to battle the dogs as they swim after their quarry. He immediately treads water to the center of the pool with Tina and stops to look at the dogs.

  To his surprise, two of the German Shepherds have elected instead to pursue Chandler and his men near the side of the home. The one dog that remains seems terrified of entering the water. As Rory looks over its body armor, h
e realizes that the dogs have been trained to stay out of the water when they are equipped with their protective gear. He immediately begins to swim with Tina toward the dog, listening to it snarl as they get closer. When they are within a foot of the powerful animal, Rory begins to splash water on its face, and the dog begins growl, bounding back and forth along the edge of the pool.

 

  In a moment of inspiration, he lets go of Tina, and throws two successive waves of water in the dog’s face, causing it to bite in the air. When the dog lurches for him, Rory leaps upward from the water and grabs the horn at the right side of its helmet. He then twists the helmet to the right, and pulls the dog into the pool.

 

  The shepherd tries to break free of his grip, but as the armor is immersed in the water, it pulls the dog down to the bottom like a stone. Rory watches with a mixture of guilt and relief as the dog attempts to free itself from the bottom of the pool, leaping and running as hard as it can in the heavy body suit. With all of its strenuous efforts, the dog quickly suffocates, and stops moving at the bottom of the pool. Rory immediately swims back to Tina, and pulls her up so that she can get some much needed oxygen.

 

  “Here, baby.” Rory says to her through excited breaths. “We need to cling to the edge, but when the dogs come, push back to the middle of the pool.” He instructs with urgency, knowing that their opportunity is fast disappearing.

 

  Rory hears screams