Here's the first 2000 (approx) words:
DEAD. DEAD. DEAD.
Chapter 1
For a job like this Robby ‘Minty’ Macinnes used the Lincoln sedan. The car wasn’t as nimble or as cool as the Harley’s. But it made less noise even when it rode low on the suspension with all 350 pounds of Tim ‘Fish’ Muller pressed into the front passenger seat. Less heavy, yet no less hairy, Richie ‘Rim’ Neidman and Rolly ‘Chops’ Bishop rode in the back. They all wore the leather and oil-stained jeans that made up the uniform of The Locusts Motorcycle Club.
Like the rest Minty did what Jethro ‘Jesus’ Williams ordered. Williams ruled The Locusts, and Minty loved and feared the man, whom he had seen beat the shit-heel narc, Mitch, to death in a Seattle bus station restroom.
The Lincoln rolled quietly through the inner-city slum. Most of the houses here had been abandoned. The rest were filled with crazies, squatters and crack-whores. Bone-thin dogs scavenged through overturned garbage cans, snarling and snapping at each other over scraps of rotten hamburger.
Minty killed the lights and parked the car. In the back seat Rim and Chops slapped magazines into their .45’s. Fish rocked to his feet outside the car before leaning back in and pulling a nail studded baseball bat out from under the seat.
‘Goddamn thing kept poking me in the ass,’ he said.
The engine shuddered and died. Minty pocketed the keys as he stepped out, keeping the sawn-off shotgun hanging down by his side. The streets were dark around here, but there were likely to be sentries watching the streets from behind boarded up windows and from the piles of trash in the stinking alleyways.
They gathered at the Lincoln’s trunk. Minty opened it, and the prospect sat up. ‘Get outta there Mutt,’ Fish reached in and lifted the scrawny kid out on to the road. He was scrawny, but tough. They called him Mutt because he was like a dog that no matter how much you kicked it, he would always come crawling back and lick your hand. Mutt pulled his jeans up and swept his hair back off his face. ‘Do I get a gun?’ he asked, eyeing up the hardware the others carried.
‘You ain’t old enough to hold your dick, let alone a real weapon,’ Rim scoffed.
‘That’s what your old lady’s for,’ Mutt shot back. Rim was on him in an instant, fists flying at the kid’s face. Mutt dodged and stepped behind Minty, grinning and pulling faces at the enraged Rim.
‘Back off for fucks sake,’ Minty growled. This was no time for these assholes to be pounding on each other. They had a house full of crack-head niggers waiting for that action.
They stood down, leaving Minty scowling at them until he was sure the moment had passed. Chops opened a bag of electric torches and handed them out to everyone. ‘Don’t turn them on, wait ‘til you are inside,’ he warned.
Minty lifted a short crowbar out of the trunk and shoved it into the back of his jeans, feeling the cold metal press against his butt. Leading the group across the street, Minty heard Mutt yelp as Rim smacked the prospect in the back of the head with the butt of his .45.
‘Quiet the fuck down,’ Minty said. Jethro’s instructions were simple, niggers have been dealing crack out of this house. But, all going according to plan, their cash-courier would be lying in a gutter somewhere trying to hold his guts in while the Locusts watched him die. The crack dealers were reportedly sitting on a bag of cash that Jethro intended to acquire for himself.
The Locusts swaggered into the overgrown yard of the wooden bungalow. The porch out front was sagging under its own weight and Fish chewed his lip looking at the weather stained boards. ‘You go round the back Fish, cover the exit,’ Minty whispered, his eyes travelling over every inch of the building. ‘Any fucker comes out; you shoot him in the face.’
Fish nodded, hitching up his stained jeans he hurried into the gloom down the side of the house.
Rim and Chops crept up the steps, they moved carefully, letting the boards take their weight slowly, avoiding the creaks that could alert anyone awake inside. The house loomed quiet and dark, no dogs barked and the neighbourhood seemed asleep. More likely stoned out of its gourd Minty thought.
He waited until Rim and Chops were in position, Mutt crouched down behind him, just like a dog. The two at the door looked towards Minty, he took a deep breath and nodded, the shotgun harder than his cock had ever been in his hands.
Rim stepped in front of the door, reared back and kicked it in. He vanished into the silent house, Chops on his heels. Minty and Mutt strode in after them. The first room of the house was awash in filth and rot. The light of their torches showed flies crawling over soiled diapers and rats had burrowed into a broken easy chair huddled in the corner.
`Fuck me,’ Mutt said, a hand covering his mouth and nose against the stench.
‘Rim, check the back. Chops, upstairs. Mutt, stay here and keep quiet.’
The moved without question, Minty had been Jethro’s right hand since the beginning. Twenty long years of riding, fucking and fighting and making money anyway they could along the way. They were free though, and Minty wouldn’t change that for anything. The Locusts were his family, a loose brotherhood of bikers, whores and hangers-on. Old horses like Rim and Chops would do anything Minty asked, he was the mouth-piece of Jethro and his word was law.
Chops filled the narrow stairway, his broad shoulders and long hair and beard would scare the shit out of anyone sober enough to walk out of the upstairs bedrooms. Minty joined him at the landing. Chops silently pointed at the nearest door. Minty nodded. Chops kicked the door in, gun levelled and ready. The smell in the room hit harder than the stink downstairs. Chops backed away from the door, cursing under his breath. Minty lifted his arm and pressed his nose against a sleeve. ‘Fuck me,’ Chops echoed Mutt.
Stepping forward Minty clicked his torch on. Kids lived in this room, a battered crib stood against one wall, clothes, food wrappers and more soiled diapers were scattered on the floor and piled in the corner.
‘No one in here man,’ Minty declared. Something caught his eye. A blanket in the crib moved. Just a rat. But he turned the torch on it anyway. Stepping over the trash he peered over the wooden rail of the crib. Too big for a rat. Minty laid the shotgun down at the end of the small bed and reached out to jerk the blanket back. ‘Jesus fuck!’ Minty yelled and the torch fell to the floor, its beam swinging across the wall as he snatched up the shotgun. From the crib came a mewling cry. A deep, wet, feverish sound. Like a child near death from some terrible lung eating disease.
‘What the fuck man?’ Chops hissed from the doorway. The crib dweller still making baby moans that didn’t have the strength to become full cries.
‘Fucking sick kid, fucking assholes,’ Minty growled. He didn’t give a shit about kids. But there was something wrong with this one. The biker picked up his torch and peered into the cot again. The kid’s warm brown skin had a dull grey sheen to it. Like all the life was leeching out of him. He moaned and writhed, pulling himself free of the blanket. Reaching up to the vertical rails, climbing up to stand against the wooden bars of the cage.
Minty pulled back, the kid had maybe two teeth and he’d been chewing on something. Dried blood and shit smears stained the mattress and bedding. The baby’s hand’s curled around the bars. The thumbs were gone, chewed off along with most of the kid’s fingers. Tiny blackened stumps slipped through the bars and reached for the torch light.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Minty swore again.
‘Come on man, we ain’t social services,’ Chops looked around the hallway, the other two doors remained closed.
‘That’s fucked up,’ Minty said and backed towards the door. The child whimpered and began to pull itself up to the edge of the crib railing.
They left the room, and approached the next door. Someone had padlocked it. Chops grinned and nodded, ‘This’ll be what we are looking for.’
Holding the torch and sawn-off shotgun in one arm Minty pulled the crowbar out of his pants. ‘You do it,’ he said to Chops.
Chops shoved the .45 into his belt and slammed the wedge end of the pry-bar into the metal hasp of the lock. Grunting slightly he pulled on it, the bolts holding the lock to the door squealed and tore free. Something thudded against the door. Minty thought he could hear a muffled moaning coming from inside the room. ‘You hear that?’ Chops ignored him and jammed the bar into the edge of the door frame. Levering it out until the door popped and almost opened. The smell coming out of this room made the kid’s room smell like a rose-garden.
Chops forced his way into the room, what ever was blocking the door gave way and the door swung wide. The windows in the room had been long boarded up. A table where the drugs were weighed and packaged had been knocked over. White powder and little plastic bags were scattered everywhere. Footprints smeared on the floor, like people had been shuffling around, pacing endlessly in the room. Something worse than the smell in the room made Minty hang back. Chops had his gun up and the torch held level with it, like a cop on a raid Minty thought.
They came at the big biker out of the dark. A Latino and a black woman, their mouths open wide and drooling some kind of frothy pus. Both of them were moaning, making a grown up version of the wet-lung noise the baby made. Chops didn’t say a word; he shot the guy in the face. The heavy .45 boomed like a cannon in the room. The flash cast long Halloween shadows up the walls.
The woman was on Chops before he could adjust his aim. She grabbed his arm and sank her teeth into his tattooed flesh. Chops howled, and pressed the pistol against the top of the head. He fired immediately and the back of the woman’s skull exploded. Hair and skull fragments splattered against the floor, dark blood glowing against the snow white powder.
Minty pulled Chops out of the way, he gritted his teeth and clutched his wounded arm. ‘Fucking cunt,’ he spat. ‘Fucking cunt!’
‘Did you see the money?’ Minty warily ducked inside the room. The two bodies lay still on the floor. Both of them a stinking mess. They’d been chewing on themselves or each other for a while. Big chunks of flesh were missing from the dead man’s arms. The woman’s neck was a ragged mess of bites and open wounds. Wishing he’s brought duct-tape to attach the torch to the shotgun Minty paused in front of a closet door. Hearing nothing, he reached out and twisted the handle. The door popped open, an avalanche of loose bills spilled out on the floor. Shoe boxes, shopping bags and a kid’s school backpack, all overflowing with creased bundles of cash.
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