The tires scream and the car lurches forward to a violent halt just before the windshield explodes. Darla is thrown so hard against her seatbelt that it actually cuts into the flesh between her breasts.

REWIND

“Talk, bitch!” Tony screams. The vein on his forehead stands out.

“I’m not telling you anything. Not a fucking thing. And get that goddamned knife out of my leg.”

“You fucking talk now or the knife is going in. You’ll be dead before you can blink!”

“Then we’ll both die!” Darla stomps the gas pedal down to the floor.

REWIND

It’s dark. They wiz by the traffic in the other lane as they head further away from the city.

“You should slow down.” Tony says.

“You should put that fucking blade away. You’re making me nervous.”

“You got a lot to be nervous about, sister.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What about Jimmy?”

“Jimmy’s ass would still be in prison if I hadn’t flushed his shit when the cops came to search the apartment. Is that why he’s pissed?”

“No, he’s pissed because he knows that you didn’t flush his shit and that you have been selling it on your own behind his back.” Tony says.

“Bullshit!”

“I want the money and the product.”

“I. Don’t. Have. It!”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t…”

“WHERE IS IT?”

“I said I don’t…ow! What the fuck?”

Darla’s foot jerks off the gas pedal. The car starts to slow down.

“Don’t slow down. And don’t move your leg. My knife is right on your femoral artery. You know what happens if I open that big blood hose up?”

Darla winces at the prick of the knife point.

“Talk.” Tony says.

Darla sighs.

REWIND

Darla walks out of the bar into the gravel parking lot, shuffling through her purse in search of a lighter and keys. The unlit cigarette she bummed from the girl inside dangles from her lips.

Halfway to her car she fumbles the purse and it drops at her feet.

“Shit! They oughta put more lights out here.”

“You ain’t kidding. Need a light?” The voice behind her says.

The voice cuts up her spine like a rusty razor blade. Darla stands up and turns around to face her ex-boyfriend’s hired thug.

“Tony. Didn’t see you come up.” She says, like he didn’t just scare the hell out of her.

Tony smiles. He lights his own cigarette and offers the flame. Darla keeps her distance. Takes the cigarette out of her mouth.

“Jimmy’s out.” Tony says.

“So I heard.”

“He’s heard some things about you too.”

“Jimmy and I…”

“Let’s take a ride.” He says.

“I gotta get to work. Maybe some other time.”

Tony shows her his big knife. Darla finds her keys and they get in the car.

FAST FORWARD

Darla gasps. The windshield explodes because Tony is thrown against it so violently that his skull becomes the point of an airborne missile. Glass rains everywhere. The car is spinning, spinning…It hops over something that is probably Tony’s body.

Darla is screaming, but she can’t hear her own voice. Something is hot and wet on her leg. It pulses and gushes from the knife that Tony drove into her as she slammed on the brakes.

The car finally stops, but her blood doesn’t. Tony was wrong. She wasn’t dead before she could blink. But her eyes are closing just the same.

STOP

He’s going to kill me, Karen thought.

It was night now and the streets were empty, save the lights lining each block corner. Karen was sitting in the passengers seat of the rusty brown pickup, the truck cab was hot and the stench of beer filled the air. Next to her sat a man, an evil man. She didn’t know his name but she had been his captive, for how long was also a mystery.

Karen spotted the .22 automatic sitting in the man’s lap, she wanted to ask where he was taking her, she wanted to ask what he was going to do with her. More pressing was the urge she had to scream and cry, but she couldn’t, the fear consumed her, swelled her throat and tongue so she couldn‘t speak.

The man was humming now, she didn’t know the song but it was the same one he hummed when he raped her. The man had picked her up off the street corner one night when she was working, he had seemed safe, harmless in fact. He was tall and thin, balding and wore thick coke bottle glasses. Attractive was not a word to describe him, geek maybe, but who was she to turn down a customer.

Karen had made a terrible mistake that night. She ended up in the man’s basement with her arms and legs chained to the floor and ceiling. It was dark down there and the stench of mold wafted around like cigarette smoke. The time went by slow, she would guess it was weeks she spent in that dark place. Every day the man came down to rape her, sometimes once a day, sometimes five. She hated this evil man, but it seemed rape was her only release from the chains. He whipped her until she bled, tortured her until she screamed and begged him to stop. Then he would read to her from the bible and preach about whores and hell, evil and hypocritical this man was. The wounds on her back were raw even now and stung as she thought about it.

The truck stopped. “Get out,” he said.

Karen froze, she didn’t understand. Was he letting her go? He couldn’t. She had seen his face.

“Get out,” he said again.

She scrambled to open the door and leapt out, her legs were weak, so she forced herself to move. The cold air blasted her face and limbs. Behind her she heard the truck door open, but she was too scared to look back. Then she heard a single shot ring through the night air and felt a searing pain in her chest. To the ground she fell, blood pouring out of the hole in her body. She was going to bleed to death. She struggled to lift her head fearing the man was getting closer, but as she looked for him all she could see was the fading tail lights of the pickup.

He punched him in the back of the head -- it was his MO.

They called him Donkeypunch. The guy's face went through the reinforced glass of the cab's window. He hit him that hard. The cab driver started to turn and ask what the fuck was going on when he caught a glimpse of the gun that his passenger had produced.

"Stop the car, Mush."

The driver did as he was told.

"Hand me your ID badge.''

"Okay."

''Now I am going to take some garbage out and you better be here when I get back because I have this little card and you won't be hard to trace.''

"Okay."

Donkeypunch grabbed the guy, whose face was now one god-awful mess, by the back of the neck and began to drag him out into the middle of a piece of industrial wasteland. Sure, a shot out here was going to echo like fuck, but it would get distorted and people wouldn't truly know what the fuck they had just heard.

They got near a ditch and he decided they had come far enough. He flipped the guy over, went through his pockets and removed anything that might make him identifiable, and then he emptied his gun into the guy's chest.

It was cool -- he had been treated to a great meal by this guy while they went through the pretence of sorting out the shit this schmuck had gotten himself into. It had gone past the point of sorting anything out -- all DP's boss wanted was a red stain where this problem was now sitting.

He hadn't actually minded the guy -- he'd met the type before: trying to make a name for themselves they bit off more than they could chew and then, when they finally realised who they were working with it was all too late.

Donkeypunch was muscle -- he was safe; at least within his own organisation. All he had to was beat up or kill a few people and his job was done.

He walked back to the cab. It stank of piss -- the driver had gone and pissed himself. He let it go -- he supposed what he had just witnessed was not something that your normal everyday folk saw or wanted to see. He handed the guy back his ID and told him to keep going to the destination first requested.

When they finally got there the guy was going to try and give him a free ride but Donkey pushed what he thought was a fair amount including a great tip through the grill. The guy smiled nervously.

When he turned the key in the lock he thought he heard some movement behind the door, then dismissed it. It was a long hallway and the bloody lightswitch wasn't working again -- he'd been trying to sort out the electrics in this place for an age.

He stepped over the clutter and opened the door to the living room. He didn't see the guy standing there at all. The first thing he knew was when the butt of the rifle connected with jaw, shattering it. He gasped for breath and almost choked on a mixture of blood and broken teeth.

This didn't knock him to the floor though -- the thing that did that was the shot in the knee-cap.

He’d been hoping that this intruder, whoever it was, was going to waste time kicking him in the balls -- he always wore a box since the last time.

"How does it feel you dumb motherfucker? Being hit in the face? Bit more fucking honest than your practice of clubbing people in the back of their skull.''

"Maybe," said Donkeypunch, the word garbled by his broken mouth.

"Know who I am?''

"No, should I?''

"I’m Marconi -- you killed my nephew last week.''

"The kiddie-fiddler?''

"That was a fucking rumour."

''Not how I heard it. He went down easy. Full of fucking regret when I killed him.''

"You bastard -- just like you're gonna be.''

"Sorry, 'fraid not."

Marconi laid into Donkeypunch, kicking him, hitting him with the rifle. Donkeypunch gurgled out a laugh. Marconi began to shoot, reload, shoot, reload.

It took a lot to kill DP. He hadn't expected to go this way. He punched upwards, broke Marconi's nose, nearly killed him. It had taken all his strength to get up on those two unsteady feet.

Marconi pushed him, he stepped backwards and the rug slid under him and he was falling through the air. The fireplace hit the back of his skull with a heavy crack and Donkeypunch ironically found his weak spot. Some had glass jaws, some had paper thin skulls.



Paul Grimsley, perpetually forging images from a life combating stasis and embracing evolution, was born in Suffolk in 1975, graduated with a degree in English & Philosophy in 1998, all the while creating literary works which include a collection of 45 poems entitled 'a suite of desolate elegance'. His poetry has also been featured in Issue 1 of 'Showcase Press Poetry Journal', and the story 'Footwork' was published in ' Out of the Gutter', Issue 1. In constant motion, Paul recently has found love and inspiration in the United States, and is currently working on several writing projects to be available in the near future.

Martin stomped his feet and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. He could see his breath hanging like a pale fog and the misty rain that coated his glasses made him feel even colder.

Martin had no money in his pocket. He couldn't even buy a cup of coffee to warm himself. Martin needed money and he needed it tonight. Carla, his woman friend, was getting unhappy with him and that wasn't good. Carla did mean things when she was mad at him. She had put a rubber snake in his closet and almost scared him to death. He guessed he was more afraid of snakes than he was of the police.

"No damn traffic. No damn cars. What a lousy night," he mumbled.

He had been waiting on this corner for over an hour. Waiting for the right kind of car and, of course, for the light to turn red so that the car had to stop. The right kind of car was a BMW or a Mercedes or, worst-case scenario, a Cadillac. He had a sort of shopping list supplied by the chop shop that disassembled the cars for parts, and they weren't interested in Fords or Buicks.

He rubbed his glasses free of mist and glanced down the street where he now saw a dark shape moving toward him. A Mercedes. Oh God! I hope the light changes. I hope he stops for the light!­ (Some smart people didn’t stop for lights this time of night.) He huddled back into the doorway so the driver couldn’t see him and Thank God! the car slowed to a stop for the red light.

Martin jumped from the doorway and, pulling his pistol as he ran, approached the driver’s door, found it unlocked--stupid turd--and jerked it open.

A small, frail, old man sat behind the wheel looking up at him with a mean expression.

"What do you want?" The man had not moved. He merely pushed his glasses up on his long crooked nose and stared back at Martin.

“Hey man! Get out of the damn car and be quick about it!” Martin poked him with the gun.

The man sat there and continued to look angrily at Martin. “I don’t think so,” he said, “I’m late for an appointment. It’s a very important appointment. I advise you to just back away and let me go. It would be best for you.”

“You gotta' be kiddin'!” Martin reached in and pulled him from the car. The man, however, continued to hold onto his arm to keep Martin from getting into the car.

“Let go, you old fool. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with, Martin. Just walk away. I don’t want to hurt you. I am very cruel when I get angry.”

These words pushed Martin over the edge. He clubbed the man with his pistol, driving him to his knees and causing him to lose his hold on Martin's arm. Martin scrambled to get into the car, but couldn’t close the door because the man had somehow managed to get his foot into the door.

“You gonna' get hurt old man!”

“_Solonica, debra, sojourne!_” the man shouted as he waved his hand at Martin.

“Crazy foreigner,” Martin pushed at the foot with all his might, but for an old man, this one was very strong.

“_Ulta manaim. soborled._” As the man said these words, Martin felt a chill that was worse than anything he had felt while standing in the rain. He made one last effort to get the man’s foot out of the door, and failing this, shot him in the face.

The man slumped to the ground, his hand still pointed toward Martin and it almost seemed as if Martin could see a white beam of light streaming toward him.

Shuddering, he slammed the car door shut and pulled on through the intersection. In his rear-view mirror he could see the figure of the man standing there in the rain. How could he be standing there when he just been shot in the face?

“Stupid bastard. I didn’t want to hurt him. What’s he doing threatening me and--how did he know my name? He called me Martin. How did he know?”

The swish of the windshield wipers reminded him how lucky he was to be out of the rain, but then he noticed the car was unusually cool. He fiddled with the unfamiliar controls of the heating system, but nothing seemed to help. He could see his breath condensing on the windshield in small frosty particles.

“Heater's probably broken. Don’t make no difference. This car’s gonna' be history in just a little while. Don't make me no never mind." He switched his attention to the radio and was able to turn it on, but no matter how he twisted the tuning dial, all he could get was elevator music and he hated elevator music with a passion.

“Damn. This car ain’t worth the powder to blow it up.”

Just then a police cruiser pulled up alongside of him and he broke out in a sweat. “Don’t let them stop me. Please Lord don’t let them stop me.”

The two officers in the cruiser, however, completely ignored him and then pulled away ahead of his car.

“My lucky day. This is my lucky day!”--As it turned out it wasn’t.

He grinned as he signaled to make his turn toward the road where the chop shop was located, but the car refused to turn and continued its straight path down the highway.

“What the hell is going on? My damn steering wheel is jammed. This car is one piece of junk." He twisted and turned the steering wheel, but the car didn't respond.

The car seemed to be out of control because now it veered into the left turn lane and, running a red light, turned into traffic. There was a squealing of brakes and a cacophony of car horns. Headlights painted their bright pictures on the car's interior and Martin was thrown back and forth as the car somehow maneuvered to miss the onrushing vehicles. Martin knew now that something (or someone) else was in control of the car.

Maybe that old guy had a remote control installed. Maybe it’s some new anti-theft device and it’s gonna' deliver me to the police station. I’m getting outta' this car right now.

He pushed hard on the brake pedal, but the car didn’t stop. He tried the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. In spite of the cold he began to sweat even more. Just then the dome light came on and when he looked on the floor, he saw a large, thick snake. It covered most of the floorboard and its writhing coils seemed to be reaching out for him.

"Jesus Christ," he screamed while lifting his feet as high as he could. He then heard a rattling sound which drove him even higher in the seat. The car purred on with Martin scrabbling to try to get into the back seat—as far away as he could from the coiled menace on the floor.

Something, however, kept him in the front seat, pinned behind the wheel. He could feel the movement at his feet as the snake coiled and uncoiled. Its scales scrabbled and scraped against his trouser legs. Martin had never been so scared in his life—yet.

The car stopped suddenly, and he tried the door handle again, but it was locked. He hammered on the window, but only hurt his fist. "Help! Help!" he shouted, but there was no one to hear him on this deserted street.

"Why did I pick this car? Jesus, save me. I ain't never gonna hurt nobody again!"

Jesus wasn't listening.

The car started moving again as though it had been sitting there making up its mind.

"Where you goin', car?" Martin shuddered as he felt the snake at his feet moving slowly up his leg. He was afraid to move in fear that the snake would strike him, afraid about where it might strike him if it moved any higher.

The car was picking up speed. "Maybe the cops will stop it." He had never before yearned for the cops. He wanted out of this car. Jail suddenly looked awfully good.

Street lights flashed by as the car accelerated. "Too fast! Too fast. Gonna' hit somebody."

There was a screeching of brakes from other cars as Martin's car ran another red light and then veered down a side street.

"Where you goin', car? This is a dead end. Can't get out of here. Nothin' there but the river."

Faster and faster the car moved down the narrow street. It bounced in the air as it hit the old railroad tracks and Martin was flung back and forth in the seat like a kid in a tilt-a-whirl.

"Stop!" Martin shouted. "Oh Lord, please stop!"

There was a chain-link fence at the end of the street, but the car plowed through it and hurtled down a dark lonely pier. Martin knew where the car was going now and, once more, he hammered on the window. When the car reached the end of the pier, it flew through the air for twenty feet and then fell into the river. For a while, the headlights could be seen as it sank to the bottom. For a while, bubbles could be seen slowly rising from the car.

Martin had finally gotten his wish. The car had stopped. The doors, at long last, unlocked themselves. There were still a few problems, however. The car was on the bottom under thirty feet of water, Martin couldn't swim, and the snake was very angry now.