Josh Stallings - Out There Bad

I was doing ninety when I hit the highway. I know they say to look both ways before crossing a road, but I never was one to listen. A bus blared its horn as I flew past it. The Mercedes was glued to the pavement. Crossing the highway, I nailed a hard left and headed back towards Ensenada. The SUV had to lock up his brakes to keep from smashing like a bug on the side of the bus. By the time he got across the road, I had dialed it up to well past a hundred. I don’t know what ungodly amount the S500 cost, but it was worth every penny. It soared down the highway like a racehorse that had to be held back. Even at high speed it felt like it had mountains of thrust left. Pushing it up over the hundred and forty mark, the SUV’s headlights shrunk to pin points and then were gone like a bad memory.

I dumped the car in a strip club parking lot, I left the keys in the ignition. It would be gone, stripped or painted before whoever was hunting us found it. Slipping down a dark alley I leaned against a brick wall. My heart was pounding. My head throbbed. My shoulder felt like it was on fire. My cock was still rock hard. I felt like throwing up. I had to keep moving.

I did a quick accounting and found a hundred and forty-two dollars, a SIG.380 with five rounds in the mag and nothing else. My duffle, extra cash and guns had gone down with the Scout. I was eighty miles from the border in Tecate, some mad fucker was hunting me and it wouldn’t be long before the local cops started looking for the killer of three thugs in an alley and three more out at the hacienda. Even in these Wild West days, that many bodies would surely put them high on their list of crimes to solve. I was caked in sweat, dust and blood. I needed a doctor, a bath, a drink and a long night’s sleep but it didn’t look like I was going to be getting any of them any time soon.

Adolpho was sitting on his stool in front of Anthony’s when I stumbled up. “Chingalo! You look bad, compadre.”

“You think?” I tried to smile, but failed miserably.

“Are they looking for you?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Then come, rapido!” He led me around the side of the club to a small parking lot. Laying back the front seat of his Toyota, he placed a rough woven blanket over me and promised to come back as soon as his shift was over at four. He was afraid to draw attention to himself by leaving early.

In the dark car I closed my eyes, I couldn’t shake the fear in Nika’s face when I mounted her. The feel of her downy hair against my cock. My hand brushed across my erection. The faint scent of her sex was on me. I hadn’t been laid in months and it had taken its toll. I started to stroke myself, anything to escape the reality of my situation. My stomach started to tumble. I was jerking off to thoughts of a child. Opening the car door I puked onto the asphalt. I was trembling with the blanket up over my head when sleep finally took me.

In the soft predawn light, Teyo sat in the park down by the bay. The massive Mexican flag flying overhead slapped in the morning breeze. One of the other tip boys passed him the fat joint. He had spent the night this way. After the shootout with the Russians, he had run deeper into the barrio. He used the cash the foreigners had fronted him to buy a bag of bud, the good shit, not the rag he normally smoked. This was the kind of weed he usually reserved to impress a girl. But he needed to chill, hang with his friends and blot out the ugliness.

None of the boys heard Xlmen approach, he seemed to appear standing before them. “You are called Teyo?” He pointed one of his gnarled fingers at the boy. Teyo nodded nervously. “Leave us.” Xlmen looked at the others, who were quick to comply. One of them gave Teyo a sorry expression, but what could they do?

“Do you know who I am?” Xlmen asked once they were alone in the plaza.

“Si, senor, you are Santiago’s hunter.”

“Are you frightened?”

“No,” Teyo lied.

“Then you are an idiot. I have killed more men than you have met.”

“Are going to kill me?” Even in the cold, Teyo had started to sweat.

“Most likely, yes. You have been working for the Russians.”

“Just the one time, I swear on my mother’s grave, I was going to tell Senor Santiago.”

“You’re a liar, I don’t blame you. Truth has lost all value in these troubled times. Did you take a woman to meet with them?”

“No, only the two gringos, I swear.”

“I know, on your mother’s grave. Who was a toothless whore, I’m sure. Describe the gringos.”

“The short one had glasses, skinny, I think he liked the coca, and glasses, he had glasses,” Teyo started to relax. This was a task he was up to and maybe there would be some cash in it if he could help Santiago find the gringos.

“The other?”

“Big, very tall, and strong. Red hair and beard, I’m sure he has done time before, you can tell. His eyes, they were flat and he carried a huge gun. See my head, this lump he gave me.” He parted his dirty black hair, turning around to show where his head had hit the wall. Xlmen drove his hunting knife into the boy’s back, passing between the ribs and into the heart. A small gasp was the only sound Teyo made before he died.

Dreams, if they have any logic, it is lost on me. I’m standing in the living room of a wealthy home. Kittens are running around the floor, many kittens, maybe hundreds, it’s hard to tell, they keep running back and forth. Something is wrong with them, some birth defect. They will never grow up to be happy, life will only get worse and worse for them. It is my job to kill these kittens, it is the only humane thing to do. In my hand is a hatchet. I bring it down, severing the first little creature’s head. She is a small tabby, she could have fit in my hand with room to spare and now she is lifeless. I know I should feel bad, but I’m doing what must be done. Sometimes life isn’t a pretty field of flowers, sometimes we have to do ugly acts to hold back worse ugliness. I take three more small heads quickly and easily, none struggle or cry out. They seem resigned to their fate. The blade of the hatchet comes down on an orange little fluff ball’s neck, but it doesn’t sever the head. The kitten screeches in pain. I swing down again, bones crunch but the crippled kitten isn’t dead. She tries to crawl away from me. I keep chopping. My stomach turns sour. The kitten shrieks in an almost human voice.

A happy six year old brown-skinned boy stared down at me. The dream faded away, leaving me unsettled. I was in bed in Adolpho’s house. I vaguely remembered him driving me, he had washed me in a large tub, gently as any mother had ever washed their child. A sticky mud paste covered my shoulder where the dog had bit me. My mouth tasted like a gym sock. When the boy noticed I was awake, he smiled and started asking me a string of questions in Spanish.

“No habla Espanol,” I told him.

“No? I know Spanish, English and some French. Don’t you go to school?”

“I went, but I wasn’t much good at it.”

“I’m first in my class.”

“Smart kid.”

“I know. Popi says you have a good heart, but bad judgment.”

“Your popi said that?”

“Si, was he right?”

“Yes, he was right.”

“Jaquene!” A short sturdy woman leaned in the door, she spoke in harsh Spanish. The boy rolled his eyes at me and then walked out. The woman leaned down, inspecting my shoulder. She prodded the tender flesh and sniffed it.

“Will I live?” I asked her.

“No, but this wound will not be your death.” Her accent was thick, her voice was soft with an edge of steel resting just below the surface.

“You are Adolpho’s woman?”

“His wife. I am not the innocent mountain girl he thinks I am. I know bad men when I see them. You repay kindness with death. I have fixed you as good as any hospital, now I want you gone from my house.”