The buildings all looked hollow, abandoned. The windows as soulless black holes from behind which it seemed only spectres and spirits loomed, watching out from their hidden places upon a world that seemed barren and desolate.
Morena's mood had been dark but even that had not prepared her for this ghost town shrouded under a living fog.
A living fog, that is exactly what it seemed like. It flowed around the buildings, around her car, it filled every space as if trying to choke the senses.
She passed through one empty street after another, the sky darkening and a sickly pall glowing in the misty air from the sporadic street lighting. Morena looked to the left and right, up alleyways and side streets as her car rumbled down the main road, glancing here and there for some sign of life in this morose place.
A sudden shadow darted across the road before her and with a screech from her tyres Morena slammed on the brakes, the car skidding as the wheels locked, the left front tyre hitting a pothole and bursting the radial with an audible pop.
"What the hell was that?" Morena groaned as she caught her breath behind the wheel, her hands trembling and her heart racing.
What had that been? It looked like a deer or something, but what would a deer be doing wandering the streets of the town center, even if the town did appear lifeless.
Tentatively she reached for the door handle, best to see what damage had been done to her tyre.
The air of Purity Bay was crisp with a slightly salty tang from the nearby ocean, and something else as well, something like a slight hint of... meat. That was it, there was a smell not unlike the interior of a butcher's shop, fresh cut meat hanging in order to properly drain of blood and get the good strong flavour.
There didn't appear to be a butcher's nearby however, and there certainly was no meat packing plant close by to cause such a smell.
"Oh God damn it," Morena cursed as she turned her attention towards her wheel, the radial had been completely shredded by that bloody pothole. Ragged tears ran along the tyre wall and clumps of rubber marked the path back to the point of impact.
There was no pothole!
She had been convinced of it, the heavy impact on the steering wheel and the sudden jarring of the car. And yet there was nothing there, the black streak of the skidmark led back to a single spot on the road where the wheels had originally locked. Had it been simply a blowout?
The problem now was that she didn't have a spare, she was certain of this because her late husband had become convinced of the benefits of run-flat tyres. "They'll be great for you, honey, you'll never need to worry about changing a tyre again, just drive to the nearest garage."
Except run-flat tyres work by having the car drive on a strengthened tyre wall and that isn't a lot of use when a large portion of said tyre wall is now lying in lumps along the road.
With nothing else for it Morena removed her jacket from the back seat and locked the car, she took a note of the street name from the sign on the corner and then took off to find some help.
She was only feet from the car before it was completely lost to the mist and the growing night, somewhere in the back of her mind she was thinking that it was perhaps a bad idea to be wandering the streets of an unfamiliar town by herself.
On the otherhand there didn't appear to be anyone else about anyway, she would probably be safe enough.
It was eerily quiet about town. Somewhere far off in the distance she could hear the roll of the waves breaking against the beach, but there was an abscence of bird calls or even the simple ambiant noise of traffic or people.
She continued in a direction that would, or should be taking her towards the coast.
From behind there was a sound like the clatter of light hooves, that deer or whatever it was again. Perhaps.
Looking around Morena could see nothing, the sound was gone.
It came again from a side alley and vanished almost as quickly.
Pulling her coat tight around her she walked on.
There were shop fronts around her now, obviously thise was the town center and equally obvious was the abscence of life.
She thought that she heard a sound like chittering, but it really felt like one of those sounds that you convince yourself that you have heard rather than actually hearing. Pausing for a few moments to listen she heard nothing more, and the mist refused to give up it's secrets.
Starting forward again Morena cursed silently to herself for becoming so skittish, though she still had to admit that it was highly unusual for a town to be so empty. The stores all looked relatively modern and well kept, it wasn't as though the town had been forgotten and left to rot, these businesses looked as though they could open tomorrow. If only there was somebody to open them.
She continued on as darkness finally took hold, the streetlights flickered in unison and somewhere in the distance a dog howled at an unseen moon.
Footsteps! Morena could hear the heavy sound of approaching footsteps, but she was unsure from where.
"Hello?"
She called once but was unsure if this had really been the best of ideas, there was still no one else on the street that she could see.
Quickening her pace Morena continued towards the coast, thanking providence that she had chosen to wear sneakers for the drive which left her footsteps as relatively silent now.
The footsteps still approached, she guessed from the sound that it was a man in leather soled shoes and wherever he was he was gaining.
Looking behind her still revealed nothing in the mist, and it was then that she really should have been looking at what was ahead of her.
Morena walked smacked into something soft, the sudden shock unbalanced her and she fell on her backside.
A man dressed in black stood with his face in shadow, a panic began to overtake her as she sat on the pavement.
"That was quite a stumble. Are you ok?"
He spoke in a pleasant, unaccented voice, it sounded soft yet at the same time confident and authoritive.
Morena was taken aback and sat dumbstruck.
He offered a hand to help her up, "Lucifer Pendragon, come on."
She accepted the offer of help and he easily pulled Morena to her feet.
There seemed to be more people on the streets now, in fact the town looked positively vibrant. Full of life.
The man named Lucifer gave her a charming smile and asked her to join him for a drink, somewhere inside her Morena found it impossible to refuse.
As they strode along towards the coast Morena failed to notice that it was a beautiful starry night, the fog had completely vanished.
Saturday 7 February 2009
Tuesday 29 July 2008
4. Respite For The Drifting Soul
Morena felt empty inside today. She felt empty inside most days, but today there seemed to be a far more profound feeling of the void than the burden she normally shouldered. It was a dark emptiness, a reminder not only of loss, but of the circumstance surrounding that loss.
It was a year to the day now that she paused to think about it. Exactly one year ago to this very day her life had began its downward spiral that saw her lose her family, her job, her home, and her life in LA. She had drifted since then, drifting in a sea of despair and blown where the winds of fate might take her.
It was a year to the day that she had lost her son, her angel, her shining light. He was 6 at the time, out for a drive with David to no destination in particular. God it was a beautiful day, 32oC and no more than a wisp of cloud in the sky. They had been to the water park that morning, Josh had loved that, he always did. The slides, the wave machine... It broke her heart just to think of his smiling face, to think that she could see it now in nothing other than photographs that would only fade over time.
If only her grief would do the same.
David had been cruising down Sunset Boulevard with the top down, Josh still damp from the park and slurping on a big ice cream, neither of them with a care in the world.
It took mere seconds for her life to change irrevocably, in one instant, the blink of an eye, a single flash and everything started to crumble. David had taken a seizure behind the wheel, his body wracked with convulsions and he lost control of the car.
The car simply folded when it went into the bus.
Josh was killed instantly.
When he awoke in intensive care David could not understand what was happening, he could barely understand where he was, he could barely understand even who Morena was. It was days before anyone could summon the strength to tell him about his son, and a week before they could tell him that his seizure was the result of a brain tumor.
They gave him 6 months. He lasted 4.
It had all been too much for Morena. To lose her child and her husband.
She could no longer focus on work, she could no longer focus on her home. Her family called often to try and comfort her, to break the wall of despair that she had erected about herself. She had taken to drinking, she had taken to prescription medications, she had taken to anti-depressants. She took anything that would make the pain go away for a while.
Her job was the next thing to go, it was no longer seemingly to employ a person who had become a hazard onto themselves, that their addictions threatened to destroy them.
Eventually she had turned to the church. She didn't find Jesus, and God remained as elusive as he ever had. What she did find was a certain comfort in reading the works of people who had a true faith in something, a firm believe in there being a better world if only we would all work towards it.
For the first time in months she had slept soundly, though her days still filled her with emptiness and apathy.
Without a job she soon could not afford to keep up the payments on her home, but in her current state of mind that was to suit her fine. She sold the house, cashed in her savings and bonds and took to the open road with little more than a full tank of gas and her Bible.
She had traveled much of the West Coast trying to find some sort of reprieve for her broken soul, she didn't want to move inland, the sea was the only calming influence that remained in her heart and it would break her to be away from it.
The journey back south again had felt twice as long, she knew that the only thing before her was the world that she no longer wanted a part of, the world that had caused her so much pain. She saw it as a revenant, a malevolent specter sitting on the horizon with ill intent towards her, some sinister purpose, a depraved plan to destroy what little of her remained.
She couldn't take the thought of it. What Morena wanted was a respite from the demons that plagued her, clemency from the horrid things that sprang to her mind. The thoughts of death, the thoughts of blood. She wanted to escape it all.
An off-ramp led off the highway before her, the sign long having fallen and rusted she knew not where it would lead, but towards the coast she could just make out the outline of some buildings.
Briefly darkness seemed to be all about her as the road meandered through a wooded glade and an ocean mist was rising. The road seemed to go on forever, certainly far longer than it looked from the highway, surely there should have been houses by now?
Had she really seen buildings from the highway? Even if she hadn't then surely she should have reached the coast by now?
An apparition loomed out of the mist before her, a giant shadow.
Buildings!
At last, she had finally made it. The first signs of civilization.
A rusted sign proclaimed 'THE MISTY COAST WELCOMES SAFE DRIVERS' in an inviting font.
In bold beneath that 'PURITY BAY'.
Morena smiled, that was a nice name. As she drove by into the deserted and fog shrouded streets she spared only a moments consideration to how the Population count had been coarsely scratched from the sign.
It was a year to the day now that she paused to think about it. Exactly one year ago to this very day her life had began its downward spiral that saw her lose her family, her job, her home, and her life in LA. She had drifted since then, drifting in a sea of despair and blown where the winds of fate might take her.
It was a year to the day that she had lost her son, her angel, her shining light. He was 6 at the time, out for a drive with David to no destination in particular. God it was a beautiful day, 32oC and no more than a wisp of cloud in the sky. They had been to the water park that morning, Josh had loved that, he always did. The slides, the wave machine... It broke her heart just to think of his smiling face, to think that she could see it now in nothing other than photographs that would only fade over time.
If only her grief would do the same.
David had been cruising down Sunset Boulevard with the top down, Josh still damp from the park and slurping on a big ice cream, neither of them with a care in the world.
It took mere seconds for her life to change irrevocably, in one instant, the blink of an eye, a single flash and everything started to crumble. David had taken a seizure behind the wheel, his body wracked with convulsions and he lost control of the car.
The car simply folded when it went into the bus.
Josh was killed instantly.
When he awoke in intensive care David could not understand what was happening, he could barely understand where he was, he could barely understand even who Morena was. It was days before anyone could summon the strength to tell him about his son, and a week before they could tell him that his seizure was the result of a brain tumor.
They gave him 6 months. He lasted 4.
It had all been too much for Morena. To lose her child and her husband.
She could no longer focus on work, she could no longer focus on her home. Her family called often to try and comfort her, to break the wall of despair that she had erected about herself. She had taken to drinking, she had taken to prescription medications, she had taken to anti-depressants. She took anything that would make the pain go away for a while.
Her job was the next thing to go, it was no longer seemingly to employ a person who had become a hazard onto themselves, that their addictions threatened to destroy them.
Eventually she had turned to the church. She didn't find Jesus, and God remained as elusive as he ever had. What she did find was a certain comfort in reading the works of people who had a true faith in something, a firm believe in there being a better world if only we would all work towards it.
For the first time in months she had slept soundly, though her days still filled her with emptiness and apathy.
Without a job she soon could not afford to keep up the payments on her home, but in her current state of mind that was to suit her fine. She sold the house, cashed in her savings and bonds and took to the open road with little more than a full tank of gas and her Bible.
She had traveled much of the West Coast trying to find some sort of reprieve for her broken soul, she didn't want to move inland, the sea was the only calming influence that remained in her heart and it would break her to be away from it.
The journey back south again had felt twice as long, she knew that the only thing before her was the world that she no longer wanted a part of, the world that had caused her so much pain. She saw it as a revenant, a malevolent specter sitting on the horizon with ill intent towards her, some sinister purpose, a depraved plan to destroy what little of her remained.
She couldn't take the thought of it. What Morena wanted was a respite from the demons that plagued her, clemency from the horrid things that sprang to her mind. The thoughts of death, the thoughts of blood. She wanted to escape it all.
An off-ramp led off the highway before her, the sign long having fallen and rusted she knew not where it would lead, but towards the coast she could just make out the outline of some buildings.
Briefly darkness seemed to be all about her as the road meandered through a wooded glade and an ocean mist was rising. The road seemed to go on forever, certainly far longer than it looked from the highway, surely there should have been houses by now?
Had she really seen buildings from the highway? Even if she hadn't then surely she should have reached the coast by now?
An apparition loomed out of the mist before her, a giant shadow.
Buildings!
At last, she had finally made it. The first signs of civilization.
A rusted sign proclaimed 'THE MISTY COAST WELCOMES SAFE DRIVERS' in an inviting font.
In bold beneath that 'PURITY BAY'.
Morena smiled, that was a nice name. As she drove by into the deserted and fog shrouded streets she spared only a moments consideration to how the Population count had been coarsely scratched from the sign.
Tuesday 30 October 2007
3. Author, Table For One
Lucifer Pendragon needed a new story, that or a change in career. He'd been doing the horror novelist thing for so long now that he really cared little for it these days, there are only so many times that you can write about tentacled god-monsters and psychotic episodes before you begin to question your own sanity.
He sat in his darkened room staring at the old Apple Mac word processor, he had a brand new MacBook sitting in a leather case beside his desk but for some reason always felt more comfortable typing on this archaic piece of machinery before him. Clicking the keys distractedly the makings of his next bestseller appeared out of the ether, he really needed absolutely zero effort to describe horrors the likes of which few could imagine, the words just found their way onto the page.
About four paragraphs in he highlighted everything and deleted the lot. On the now blank screen the cursor blinked expectantly, awaiting his fingers to jump over the keys once more, for the creative flow to continue its torrent.
Lucifer frowned at the empty screen, cautiously as if his fingers were unsure of their course the words he held her in his arms flitted into existence and every ounce of his ability fought against it.
Love was a thing that happened to other people, it was never to be for Lucifer because once, a long time ago he had experienced true love, not the lust coupled with OCD that most people believed to be love but actual genuine love. The kind of love that you could never doubt, that would never falter and to his knowledge it never had, even to this day. You never know what you really have until you lose it, and at a time when Lucifer had wanted more he turned his back on that love and now he ached without it, its absence burned his being and threatened to consume him.
His only output was the written word, to fill his time with anything that might distract him from that which he once lost, the words flowed from his mind so quickly that he could scarcely keep up but he would not let it overtake him.
For maybe twenty years now he had occupied this apartment on the hill behind the promenade of Purity Bay, it was a nice building and the rent was cheap, plus his landlord was the kind who kept himself to himself so long as the rent came in. He rarely went to the cities out of fear of his fans, kids dressed in black with dark makeup whining about the existential meaning of his stories and the deeper philosophies of his cynosure asseverations. God, get a life you morose little bastards, there is no hidden secret to enlightenment in his tales, no guiding ideology wrapped up in an enigma in his words, they are simply stories about about bad things happening to people who may or may not have deserved it.
This may sound like an ungrateful attitude to take towards one's fans, but these kids who dressed like ghouls were all the same, pretentious little shits who push the world away and then complain about being lonely and misunderstood. If they would only stop once in a while to look around and appreciate the true splendor of the world then they would see that what Lucifer had simply been trying to put to paper was the idea of a dark side of the universe trying to pervert this one. There were no tenets or doctrines in his tales, there were only motivations for his characters, reasons for them to go on living until the horrible thing happened.
Tapping at the keys the words struggled onto the screen, he needed a setting, he needed a place to wear down the characters, to make them more human so that his audience could relate to them. He needed somewhere in which life would spiral out of control for them, that things could go wrong and life would seem bleak, somewhere were in the darkest hours of their lives they could find one another.
Drumming his fingers on his desk and lost in thought Lucifer Pendragon stared out his broad window, he needed to send them to somewhere truly forsaken and lost, a place forgotten to the rest of the civilized world.
He saved the file and shut down the Mac, rising from his chair and grabbing his jacket he decided to head down to the bar for a drink and see a bit of life.
Lucifer Pendragon needed to send his characters to Purity Bay.
He sat in his darkened room staring at the old Apple Mac word processor, he had a brand new MacBook sitting in a leather case beside his desk but for some reason always felt more comfortable typing on this archaic piece of machinery before him. Clicking the keys distractedly the makings of his next bestseller appeared out of the ether, he really needed absolutely zero effort to describe horrors the likes of which few could imagine, the words just found their way onto the page.
About four paragraphs in he highlighted everything and deleted the lot. On the now blank screen the cursor blinked expectantly, awaiting his fingers to jump over the keys once more, for the creative flow to continue its torrent.
Lucifer frowned at the empty screen, cautiously as if his fingers were unsure of their course the words he held her in his arms flitted into existence and every ounce of his ability fought against it.
Love was a thing that happened to other people, it was never to be for Lucifer because once, a long time ago he had experienced true love, not the lust coupled with OCD that most people believed to be love but actual genuine love. The kind of love that you could never doubt, that would never falter and to his knowledge it never had, even to this day. You never know what you really have until you lose it, and at a time when Lucifer had wanted more he turned his back on that love and now he ached without it, its absence burned his being and threatened to consume him.
His only output was the written word, to fill his time with anything that might distract him from that which he once lost, the words flowed from his mind so quickly that he could scarcely keep up but he would not let it overtake him.
For maybe twenty years now he had occupied this apartment on the hill behind the promenade of Purity Bay, it was a nice building and the rent was cheap, plus his landlord was the kind who kept himself to himself so long as the rent came in. He rarely went to the cities out of fear of his fans, kids dressed in black with dark makeup whining about the existential meaning of his stories and the deeper philosophies of his cynosure asseverations. God, get a life you morose little bastards, there is no hidden secret to enlightenment in his tales, no guiding ideology wrapped up in an enigma in his words, they are simply stories about about bad things happening to people who may or may not have deserved it.
This may sound like an ungrateful attitude to take towards one's fans, but these kids who dressed like ghouls were all the same, pretentious little shits who push the world away and then complain about being lonely and misunderstood. If they would only stop once in a while to look around and appreciate the true splendor of the world then they would see that what Lucifer had simply been trying to put to paper was the idea of a dark side of the universe trying to pervert this one. There were no tenets or doctrines in his tales, there were only motivations for his characters, reasons for them to go on living until the horrible thing happened.
Tapping at the keys the words struggled onto the screen, he needed a setting, he needed a place to wear down the characters, to make them more human so that his audience could relate to them. He needed somewhere in which life would spiral out of control for them, that things could go wrong and life would seem bleak, somewhere were in the darkest hours of their lives they could find one another.
Drumming his fingers on his desk and lost in thought Lucifer Pendragon stared out his broad window, he needed to send them to somewhere truly forsaken and lost, a place forgotten to the rest of the civilized world.
He saved the file and shut down the Mac, rising from his chair and grabbing his jacket he decided to head down to the bar for a drink and see a bit of life.
Lucifer Pendragon needed to send his characters to Purity Bay.
Tuesday 23 October 2007
2. Two is company, three is inconvenient
"Purity Bay, what a shithole."
He stood in a convenient shadow behind the town hall, he stared down at the gray and rusting derelict dockyards that had once been the heart and soul of this now forgotten town. This was a place that had been slowly dying these last twenty years and in the bland, industrial surroundings it was unlikely that it would see rejuvenation any time soon. Not that anyone would really complain if the town just disappeared off the map forever.
"Purity Bay, home of the damned and haven of lost souls. You must exercise caution with every step that you make in this land, this place is forsaken."
"There are few places that aren't. Don't worry, my friend, I am not without my ways."
"It is not you that I am worried about, Clement, it is the lives of our brethren who may be put at risk by our involvement here."
"Needs must, my friend. Needs must."
Clement had been to this forsaken town once before, ten years back when he had been assigned to investigate what could only really be called a massacre that had taken place around the docklands area. Unfortunately his investigation had bore no fruit and the town once again dropped off the radar, or at least it had until a mutilated corpse had washed up off the San Diego coastline about three days back.
Finding a corpse in the ocean near any major American city isn't exactly a rare occurrence, you usually could find a nice ripe one every Monday morning, riddled with bullets or otherwise beaten. The point being that you generally don't get one that attracts higher attention than local law enforcement. But when you find one that happens to be missing several vital organs without apparent damage to the flesh other than the superficial scratchings of satanic runes certain agencies do sit up and take notice.
Hence Clement standing now looking down at the soulless docklands and the promenade that might at one time offered the promise of amusement offered now only the promise of a sexually transmitted infection or a felony. He reckoned that he could pass some time with one or the other if the Shuck Water bar lead proved to be a wild goose chase.
"You will contact us if you find anything..?"
"Aaron," Clement gave his shorter companion a wry smile, "you know that I'm not going to go off half cocked."
"Again."
The tall man chuckled to himself and felt the wind blow through his long dark hair, he knew that this was exactly the kind of cinematic pose that he should be striking in order to leave his companion with no confidence in him whatsoever.
The blond man named Aaron stepped back into the shadows and then was gone as if he had never existed, the darkness swallowing his presence in the same manner as a ravenous beast.
Clement pulled his long coat tighter around himself, he had forgotten how cold the breeze always seemed to be around this accursed town, he started down the hill towards the bland, low set building that was the Shuck Water bar.
He stood in a convenient shadow behind the town hall, he stared down at the gray and rusting derelict dockyards that had once been the heart and soul of this now forgotten town. This was a place that had been slowly dying these last twenty years and in the bland, industrial surroundings it was unlikely that it would see rejuvenation any time soon. Not that anyone would really complain if the town just disappeared off the map forever.
"Purity Bay, home of the damned and haven of lost souls. You must exercise caution with every step that you make in this land, this place is forsaken."
"There are few places that aren't. Don't worry, my friend, I am not without my ways."
"It is not you that I am worried about, Clement, it is the lives of our brethren who may be put at risk by our involvement here."
"Needs must, my friend. Needs must."
Clement had been to this forsaken town once before, ten years back when he had been assigned to investigate what could only really be called a massacre that had taken place around the docklands area. Unfortunately his investigation had bore no fruit and the town once again dropped off the radar, or at least it had until a mutilated corpse had washed up off the San Diego coastline about three days back.
Finding a corpse in the ocean near any major American city isn't exactly a rare occurrence, you usually could find a nice ripe one every Monday morning, riddled with bullets or otherwise beaten. The point being that you generally don't get one that attracts higher attention than local law enforcement. But when you find one that happens to be missing several vital organs without apparent damage to the flesh other than the superficial scratchings of satanic runes certain agencies do sit up and take notice.
Hence Clement standing now looking down at the soulless docklands and the promenade that might at one time offered the promise of amusement offered now only the promise of a sexually transmitted infection or a felony. He reckoned that he could pass some time with one or the other if the Shuck Water bar lead proved to be a wild goose chase.
"You will contact us if you find anything..?"
"Aaron," Clement gave his shorter companion a wry smile, "you know that I'm not going to go off half cocked."
"Again."
The tall man chuckled to himself and felt the wind blow through his long dark hair, he knew that this was exactly the kind of cinematic pose that he should be striking in order to leave his companion with no confidence in him whatsoever.
The blond man named Aaron stepped back into the shadows and then was gone as if he had never existed, the darkness swallowing his presence in the same manner as a ravenous beast.
Clement pulled his long coat tighter around himself, he had forgotten how cold the breeze always seemed to be around this accursed town, he started down the hill towards the bland, low set building that was the Shuck Water bar.
Wednesday 17 October 2007
1. Tumbleweeds caught in a drain
"Purity Bay. Man, what a shithole."
The rusted Trans Am bounced down the uneven highway that would eventually filter off into the Town Center but for now led down a street of bland, lifeless buildings that resembled apartment blocks for the manic depressed. People must have lived in at least some of the buildings, at least it could be assumed so since not all of the windows were boarded up on this street ironically named 'Jubilation Boulevard'.
"What I want to know is why the fuck this jackass couldn't meet in any one of the million diners we passed between here and Phoenix instead of us having to drive to the ass end of California. It's inconsiderate."
"Look on the bright side," the driver said in a relaxed drawl, "the law hasn't given a shit about this place in at least a decade. We'll be plenty safe for the duration."
The first few times that they drove through a stop sign the pair had went largely ignored, some mongrel dog had barked at them at one intersection but that appeared to be the only real attention that they drew. Eventually as the buildings took on a more commercial (though no less dilapidated) look the Trans Am finally met another car on the road, but it was hard to tell if the driver was really alive without being forced to stare. Assumedly he was still breathing since he made all the appropriate stops and signals, but it really was hard to tell.
An ancient dirt mall had a number of vehicles outside and even some real honest to God people walking in the car park, against all odds it seemed that Purity Bay was still inhabited after all.
Rico, the more vocal of the two drifters had his arm hanging out the passenger side window, his long greasy hair waving in the breeze that washed in. He had thick black eyebrows that one could mistake for a mono-brow framing dark green eyes, his skin was the kind of chaffed tan one gets from a lifetime of living out in the desert near quiet villages in Arizona (the type with little or no law enforcement).
Rico wasn't some scumbag thief though, he and his partner Tommy were bounty hunters, and not the type idolized by modern cinema, they were real salt of the earth, throat-cutting, blood-spilling mercenaries. Killers with little regard for the sanctity of life and whatever they had to call morals or a conscience was easily numbed by a little green medicine, that altar of altars- The Almighty Dollar.
Tommy, the driver, was a more subtle man than his partner. His brown hair was short and neat, he was always clean shaven and he generally wore a pair of aviator glasses to cover his baby blue eyes.
"Whaddaya call this dump we're supposed to meet him in?"
"The Shuck Water," replied Tommy, lighting a Marlboro, "some Irish bar down by the docks, a real shithole from what I've heard."
Rico lit himself a cigarette and threw the pack on the dashboard, "I've heard that name before."
"Yeah, I googled it before we left," Tommy took a long drag of the pungent smoke, "a few years back some guy shot the shit out of the place. Slaughtered everyone in the joint save the bartender, left him with just a gimpy leg, then he went after the two gangs who ran the town. Body count was in the hundreds by the time he was done."
"Fuck."
"Yeah, if it had happened anywhere other than a shithole like Purity Bay it might have been in the news longer."
"What the fuck did he go after the gangs for?" Rico scratched at his chin, "The fuck did the guy think he was, the Punisher or sumthin'?"
"Who knows, man, lunatic was probably on speedballs or something."
They drove through a surprisingly busy town square, and shockingly it wasn't as drab as the bounty hunters had come to expect. The town hall was built in the Federal Style and around the small park were numerous red-brick buildings with all kinds of colourful shops, hell the Old Glory even fluttered proudly in the air outside several stores. A kid was even flying a kite in the park, and Rico found himself wishing for a bolt of lightning.
The turnoff for Harbour Road brought the rusted Trans Am behind the Town Hall, as if the planners had tried to hide the failure of the town's past by blocking the view with the glorious building. The road very quickly became uneven once again and the life seemed to drain from the buildings, it was as if the docks were slowly sucking the life out of the town even though the area had long ago been shut down.
"Jesus Christ, we've been here ten minutes and I already feel sorry for myself," Rico mumbled as the car rolled down the road towards what appeared to have at once stage been a vibrant promenade area.
Ahead were the old iron gates of the dockyard, one gate was hanging off it's hinges and the sign above now bore the legend 'Pur-ty -ay Doc--ar-s', the road itself took a turn to the left along the shoreline promenade.
And there it was, the Shuck Water, and it was just as shitty as Rico had imagined.
"What a dump."
"Yep," Tommy replied as he pulled up outside and killed the engine, "come on, we've got a client to meet."
The rusted Trans Am bounced down the uneven highway that would eventually filter off into the Town Center but for now led down a street of bland, lifeless buildings that resembled apartment blocks for the manic depressed. People must have lived in at least some of the buildings, at least it could be assumed so since not all of the windows were boarded up on this street ironically named 'Jubilation Boulevard'.
"What I want to know is why the fuck this jackass couldn't meet in any one of the million diners we passed between here and Phoenix instead of us having to drive to the ass end of California. It's inconsiderate."
"Look on the bright side," the driver said in a relaxed drawl, "the law hasn't given a shit about this place in at least a decade. We'll be plenty safe for the duration."
The first few times that they drove through a stop sign the pair had went largely ignored, some mongrel dog had barked at them at one intersection but that appeared to be the only real attention that they drew. Eventually as the buildings took on a more commercial (though no less dilapidated) look the Trans Am finally met another car on the road, but it was hard to tell if the driver was really alive without being forced to stare. Assumedly he was still breathing since he made all the appropriate stops and signals, but it really was hard to tell.
An ancient dirt mall had a number of vehicles outside and even some real honest to God people walking in the car park, against all odds it seemed that Purity Bay was still inhabited after all.
Rico, the more vocal of the two drifters had his arm hanging out the passenger side window, his long greasy hair waving in the breeze that washed in. He had thick black eyebrows that one could mistake for a mono-brow framing dark green eyes, his skin was the kind of chaffed tan one gets from a lifetime of living out in the desert near quiet villages in Arizona (the type with little or no law enforcement).
Rico wasn't some scumbag thief though, he and his partner Tommy were bounty hunters, and not the type idolized by modern cinema, they were real salt of the earth, throat-cutting, blood-spilling mercenaries. Killers with little regard for the sanctity of life and whatever they had to call morals or a conscience was easily numbed by a little green medicine, that altar of altars- The Almighty Dollar.
Tommy, the driver, was a more subtle man than his partner. His brown hair was short and neat, he was always clean shaven and he generally wore a pair of aviator glasses to cover his baby blue eyes.
"Whaddaya call this dump we're supposed to meet him in?"
"The Shuck Water," replied Tommy, lighting a Marlboro, "some Irish bar down by the docks, a real shithole from what I've heard."
Rico lit himself a cigarette and threw the pack on the dashboard, "I've heard that name before."
"Yeah, I googled it before we left," Tommy took a long drag of the pungent smoke, "a few years back some guy shot the shit out of the place. Slaughtered everyone in the joint save the bartender, left him with just a gimpy leg, then he went after the two gangs who ran the town. Body count was in the hundreds by the time he was done."
"Fuck."
"Yeah, if it had happened anywhere other than a shithole like Purity Bay it might have been in the news longer."
"What the fuck did he go after the gangs for?" Rico scratched at his chin, "The fuck did the guy think he was, the Punisher or sumthin'?"
"Who knows, man, lunatic was probably on speedballs or something."
They drove through a surprisingly busy town square, and shockingly it wasn't as drab as the bounty hunters had come to expect. The town hall was built in the Federal Style and around the small park were numerous red-brick buildings with all kinds of colourful shops, hell the Old Glory even fluttered proudly in the air outside several stores. A kid was even flying a kite in the park, and Rico found himself wishing for a bolt of lightning.
The turnoff for Harbour Road brought the rusted Trans Am behind the Town Hall, as if the planners had tried to hide the failure of the town's past by blocking the view with the glorious building. The road very quickly became uneven once again and the life seemed to drain from the buildings, it was as if the docks were slowly sucking the life out of the town even though the area had long ago been shut down.
"Jesus Christ, we've been here ten minutes and I already feel sorry for myself," Rico mumbled as the car rolled down the road towards what appeared to have at once stage been a vibrant promenade area.
Ahead were the old iron gates of the dockyard, one gate was hanging off it's hinges and the sign above now bore the legend 'Pur-ty -ay Doc--ar-s', the road itself took a turn to the left along the shoreline promenade.
And there it was, the Shuck Water, and it was just as shitty as Rico had imagined.
"What a dump."
"Yep," Tommy replied as he pulled up outside and killed the engine, "come on, we've got a client to meet."
Prologue: The Ould Days
Stories of this nature always start off in some seedy bar that a right minded person wouldn't set foot into if they were payed to and this tale is no exception, save that in this case the bar was somewhat seedier than one might have otherwise come to expect.
Over the years a succession of somewhat tempestuous disagreements had left it that no two pieces of furniture quite matched, not that anyone noticed this fact anyway. The yellowed wallpaper might have been an attractive off-white or something similar at one stage but now it was stained various shades of brown ranging from Jack Daniels Old No. 7 to human blood O negative. The dark floor was similarly patterned, only more so.
The lighting in the Shuck Water bar was poor, some might say blessedly so since the advent of a no smoking policy had rendered the condition of the interior in plain sight, and had unfortunately left the regulars in plain sight too.
Back in the day, that is to say some time in the 1950's, this bar had been opened by a couple of entrepreneurial Irishmen as a haven for the hard working folks down at the dockyard. Now the docks were closed as the business moved up the coast to one of the larger cities or south to LA (if they could afford it) and the economy of Purity Bay spiraled into the toilet.
By the time of the depression in the late 80's the town was essentially in the control of two rival gangs, The Navvies and The Mammons, that isn't to say that there weren't enough smaller gangs and scumbags around to ensure that every night was an eventful one. The Navvies were the local Irish gang, all descendants of dockworkers and longtime natives of Purity Bay and all related in some way or another to the Irish gangs in Boston. They generally considered themselves fair and didn't usually involve themselves in the affairs of the normal citizenry of the town. They saw themselves more as a private army guarding the well being of a town they had helped build, and so collecting a little protection money from local businesses seemed only fair.
The Mammons on the other hand were an African American gang who had been smalltime in LA, and were never going to get anywhere in the city without drawing unwanted attention from the Bloods or the Crips, and so they sought out pastures anew. By 88 the were effectively involved in a Cold War with the Navvies of Purity Bay, though they never directly encroached on the Irish rackets and were careful enough to ensure that any Navvies they bunked off were not Irish blood.
In all this time the Shuck Water had changed hands so often that no one was quite sure how it ended up in the hands Hernando Garcia, a forty something Hispanic man with calm demeanor but a lightning temper. It wasn't that the big man would suddenly fly off the handle and beat seven shades of crap out of the first person to insult him, no this is were the calmness took control. Anyone insulting Garcia in the bar would spend the rest of the night drinking piss that had been laced with just enough alcohol to take the flavour away, and through the bar he knew enough people to have any other problems sorted.
Tonight the Shuck Water was quiet enough, a few local scumbags were in- one thief, one rapist and a guy who smelled like an arsonist (the lack of eyebrows was also a fairly good hint). A small group of Navvies sat at their usual spot at the rear of the bar, a bottle of whiskey from the 'Ould Country' providing the evening's refreshment as they laughed and guffawed about some nonsense or other that Garcia neither understood nor cared about. He didn't particularly like the Navvies, the pricks still acted like they owned the bar, hell they acted like they owned the town but that didn't bother him so much because it actually kept the crime rate lower than it rightfully should have been. The bar was a different matter though, Garcia had paid good money for the Shuck Water and he would be damned if a bunch of thugs were going to order him around like some kind of indentured servant.
At the other end of the bar, next to the large front window sat a group of Mammons and though they eyed the Navvies they maintained a respectful distance and kept to themselves. The Shuck was neutral territory for both gangs, any fighting would be done by the other idiots who frequented the place, and of that group there were plenty.
As the evening wore on the bar filled up with the usual eclectic bunch of lowlifes and dirtballs, all eager to throw back cheap booze and boast about whatever petty crimes had filled their day. Garcia would have hated to see them coming except that thanks to the Shuck's reputation these people were effectively his lifeblood, none of the regular citizenry would dare risk an evening with the worst of the worst in this godforsaken town.
An ancient looking Wurlitzer jukebox blared 'The Fields of Athenry' to which the Navvies were drunkingly roaring at the top of their lungs and hugging one another, spilling their drink all round the place in their camaraderie.
Garcia was polishing glasses like the typical barkeep cliché when 'he' first walked in, he wore a long coat of brown leather with the hood pulled up over his head leaving his face shrouded in darkness. The coat was closed by a series of straps but beneath it Garcia could make out dirty blue jeans and brown boots as the man walked towards the bar. Over the years there had been many dangerous men through the Shuck Water and the Spaniard got the feeling that here was another.
"Whiskey," he said with a voice as gravelly as quarry, "leave the bottle."
The Mammons had watched the man enter, and had allowed a few laughs amongst themselves at his ridiculous attire, did this guy think that he was a cowboy or something?
The largest of the group, a particularly nasty piece of work whom Garcia knew to be called 'Porkchop' (because he liked to Pork women and Chop his enemies, the name was far from an insult) called over to the stranger, "Hey man, there a rodeo in town or something."
This resulted in a burst of laughter from his table and from a few customers who happened to be regular enough to know that if you were this close to Porkchop it was best to laugh at his jokes lest you find yourself either getting porked or chopped. The tall man at the bar however failed even to acknowledge his presence, he emptied the glass of whiskey down his throat and proceeded to pour himself another.
"Hey, I'm talking to you, man!"
A couple of Navvies turned to see what the commotion was at the front of the bar but soon lost interest again when they saw that one of the Mammons was just picking on some stranger, that kind of thing happened all the time in the Shuck. It was a nice regular bar that was to be enjoyed exclusively by the regulars, they didn't take kindly to strangers in town.
Porkchop unfolded from his chair and patted one of the other Mammons on the shoulder, they approached the bar and stood on either side of the hooded stranger, who downed his second whiskey and poured another. He was seemingly oblivious to the two huge men who now flanked him, another whiskey disappeared into the hood.
"So what you think you're doin' here, punk?" Porkchop nudged the stranger, "Don't you know that this is a private members bar for the citizens of Purity Bay."
The stranger silently lifted the whiskey bottle and emptied another generous measure into the glass.
"What are you stupid or something?"
Porkchop's companion hit the stranger an open palm slap across the head, "Hey, Pork, maybe he's like one of them deaf and dumb types, you know. Can't hear shit, can't apologize for intruding."
The stranger raised his head slightly but did not turn, "Nigger, if you touch me again I will kill you."
"What the fuck did you say, man?" Porkchop grabbed the man's arm and squeezed tight, "I know I didn't just hear you bring some racial shit into this conversation!"
Garcia took a step back, that poor sap was as good as dead now, "Guys, take this outside, that shit takes forever to clean up."
"Yeah, lets go outside for a nice talk."
Porkchop pulled the stranger's hood back, the man underneath couldn't have been any older than thirty and there wasn't so much as a scar on his face, he had ruffled black hair and a tanned complexion. Even now he failed to truly acknowledge the presence of what was now five Mammon gang members.
"Perhaps you did not hear me the first time," the stranger spoke, his voice seemed unfitting for his features, "piss off before I give you a real reason to leave."
Porkchop grabbed the man and tried to pull him from the bar, but the stranger did not budge, he barely moved at all. With a movement like a snake the man's right arm shot out and he plunged his fingers into the eye sockets of Porkchop's companion, the man fell screaming to the ground as the others stood initially in shock, then recovering their composure they drew their guns.
The stranger turned and allowed his coat to fall open, he looked from one weapon aimed at him to the next before finally meeting eyes with the enormous Porkchop, who felt a tremble beginning first in his pistol hand and soon spreading to his legs.
"Oh. Fuck. Me!"
Over the years a succession of somewhat tempestuous disagreements had left it that no two pieces of furniture quite matched, not that anyone noticed this fact anyway. The yellowed wallpaper might have been an attractive off-white or something similar at one stage but now it was stained various shades of brown ranging from Jack Daniels Old No. 7 to human blood O negative. The dark floor was similarly patterned, only more so.
The lighting in the Shuck Water bar was poor, some might say blessedly so since the advent of a no smoking policy had rendered the condition of the interior in plain sight, and had unfortunately left the regulars in plain sight too.
Back in the day, that is to say some time in the 1950's, this bar had been opened by a couple of entrepreneurial Irishmen as a haven for the hard working folks down at the dockyard. Now the docks were closed as the business moved up the coast to one of the larger cities or south to LA (if they could afford it) and the economy of Purity Bay spiraled into the toilet.
By the time of the depression in the late 80's the town was essentially in the control of two rival gangs, The Navvies and The Mammons, that isn't to say that there weren't enough smaller gangs and scumbags around to ensure that every night was an eventful one. The Navvies were the local Irish gang, all descendants of dockworkers and longtime natives of Purity Bay and all related in some way or another to the Irish gangs in Boston. They generally considered themselves fair and didn't usually involve themselves in the affairs of the normal citizenry of the town. They saw themselves more as a private army guarding the well being of a town they had helped build, and so collecting a little protection money from local businesses seemed only fair.
The Mammons on the other hand were an African American gang who had been smalltime in LA, and were never going to get anywhere in the city without drawing unwanted attention from the Bloods or the Crips, and so they sought out pastures anew. By 88 the were effectively involved in a Cold War with the Navvies of Purity Bay, though they never directly encroached on the Irish rackets and were careful enough to ensure that any Navvies they bunked off were not Irish blood.
In all this time the Shuck Water had changed hands so often that no one was quite sure how it ended up in the hands Hernando Garcia, a forty something Hispanic man with calm demeanor but a lightning temper. It wasn't that the big man would suddenly fly off the handle and beat seven shades of crap out of the first person to insult him, no this is were the calmness took control. Anyone insulting Garcia in the bar would spend the rest of the night drinking piss that had been laced with just enough alcohol to take the flavour away, and through the bar he knew enough people to have any other problems sorted.
Tonight the Shuck Water was quiet enough, a few local scumbags were in- one thief, one rapist and a guy who smelled like an arsonist (the lack of eyebrows was also a fairly good hint). A small group of Navvies sat at their usual spot at the rear of the bar, a bottle of whiskey from the 'Ould Country' providing the evening's refreshment as they laughed and guffawed about some nonsense or other that Garcia neither understood nor cared about. He didn't particularly like the Navvies, the pricks still acted like they owned the bar, hell they acted like they owned the town but that didn't bother him so much because it actually kept the crime rate lower than it rightfully should have been. The bar was a different matter though, Garcia had paid good money for the Shuck Water and he would be damned if a bunch of thugs were going to order him around like some kind of indentured servant.
At the other end of the bar, next to the large front window sat a group of Mammons and though they eyed the Navvies they maintained a respectful distance and kept to themselves. The Shuck was neutral territory for both gangs, any fighting would be done by the other idiots who frequented the place, and of that group there were plenty.
As the evening wore on the bar filled up with the usual eclectic bunch of lowlifes and dirtballs, all eager to throw back cheap booze and boast about whatever petty crimes had filled their day. Garcia would have hated to see them coming except that thanks to the Shuck's reputation these people were effectively his lifeblood, none of the regular citizenry would dare risk an evening with the worst of the worst in this godforsaken town.
An ancient looking Wurlitzer jukebox blared 'The Fields of Athenry' to which the Navvies were drunkingly roaring at the top of their lungs and hugging one another, spilling their drink all round the place in their camaraderie.
Garcia was polishing glasses like the typical barkeep cliché when 'he' first walked in, he wore a long coat of brown leather with the hood pulled up over his head leaving his face shrouded in darkness. The coat was closed by a series of straps but beneath it Garcia could make out dirty blue jeans and brown boots as the man walked towards the bar. Over the years there had been many dangerous men through the Shuck Water and the Spaniard got the feeling that here was another.
"Whiskey," he said with a voice as gravelly as quarry, "leave the bottle."
The Mammons had watched the man enter, and had allowed a few laughs amongst themselves at his ridiculous attire, did this guy think that he was a cowboy or something?
The largest of the group, a particularly nasty piece of work whom Garcia knew to be called 'Porkchop' (because he liked to Pork women and Chop his enemies, the name was far from an insult) called over to the stranger, "Hey man, there a rodeo in town or something."
This resulted in a burst of laughter from his table and from a few customers who happened to be regular enough to know that if you were this close to Porkchop it was best to laugh at his jokes lest you find yourself either getting porked or chopped. The tall man at the bar however failed even to acknowledge his presence, he emptied the glass of whiskey down his throat and proceeded to pour himself another.
"Hey, I'm talking to you, man!"
A couple of Navvies turned to see what the commotion was at the front of the bar but soon lost interest again when they saw that one of the Mammons was just picking on some stranger, that kind of thing happened all the time in the Shuck. It was a nice regular bar that was to be enjoyed exclusively by the regulars, they didn't take kindly to strangers in town.
Porkchop unfolded from his chair and patted one of the other Mammons on the shoulder, they approached the bar and stood on either side of the hooded stranger, who downed his second whiskey and poured another. He was seemingly oblivious to the two huge men who now flanked him, another whiskey disappeared into the hood.
"So what you think you're doin' here, punk?" Porkchop nudged the stranger, "Don't you know that this is a private members bar for the citizens of Purity Bay."
The stranger silently lifted the whiskey bottle and emptied another generous measure into the glass.
"What are you stupid or something?"
Porkchop's companion hit the stranger an open palm slap across the head, "Hey, Pork, maybe he's like one of them deaf and dumb types, you know. Can't hear shit, can't apologize for intruding."
The stranger raised his head slightly but did not turn, "Nigger, if you touch me again I will kill you."
"What the fuck did you say, man?" Porkchop grabbed the man's arm and squeezed tight, "I know I didn't just hear you bring some racial shit into this conversation!"
Garcia took a step back, that poor sap was as good as dead now, "Guys, take this outside, that shit takes forever to clean up."
"Yeah, lets go outside for a nice talk."
Porkchop pulled the stranger's hood back, the man underneath couldn't have been any older than thirty and there wasn't so much as a scar on his face, he had ruffled black hair and a tanned complexion. Even now he failed to truly acknowledge the presence of what was now five Mammon gang members.
"Perhaps you did not hear me the first time," the stranger spoke, his voice seemed unfitting for his features, "piss off before I give you a real reason to leave."
Porkchop grabbed the man and tried to pull him from the bar, but the stranger did not budge, he barely moved at all. With a movement like a snake the man's right arm shot out and he plunged his fingers into the eye sockets of Porkchop's companion, the man fell screaming to the ground as the others stood initially in shock, then recovering their composure they drew their guns.
The stranger turned and allowed his coat to fall open, he looked from one weapon aimed at him to the next before finally meeting eyes with the enormous Porkchop, who felt a tremble beginning first in his pistol hand and soon spreading to his legs.
"Oh. Fuck. Me!"
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