Dead Land
Junior and Pinto: A boy and his car
By Clancy Smith
Copyright ©2011 Clancy Smith
Smashwords Edition
- Junior and Pinto -
A Boy and His Car
“God damn it, shit kicker, can’t you keep this thing straight?”
“If I hear one more mother fucking word out of that aborted fetus you call a face I’m going to tear your balls off and bury them up your ass.”
There was a painfully loud grinding sound as the car bounced and shimmied through the endless wasteland. Here and there the landscape was dotted with bits of debris, shredded rubber, cracked slabs of concrete, but by and large the years of harsh sandstorms had washed the area clean. Dead ahead, a dark shape began to loom low on the horizon.
Suddenly there was a painfully loud crack and Junior skittered wildly off the makeshift road, the car correcting itself shakily.
“Jesus mother fuck you worthless load of shit! What was that?” Junior said.
“My serpentine belt, you worthless bitch. I told you to take care of that at the last outpost.”
“Fuck it all to hell.”
“That’s about where we’re headed...”
The guards along the outpost’s watchtower heard the approaching car long before they saw it, a painfully loud cacophony of sputtering and spitting, squealing tires and explosions from the exhaust. A massive plume of thick, black smoke was the first thing visible on the winding road leading towards the portcullis.
“Christ, take a look at this,” said the first guard to his companion, passing him the binoculars. His friend pressed a button on the side of the visor and the view started zooming in: x5, x10, x20…until the car hurtling toward them could be seen in detail.
“What a piece of shit. What is that?”
“I’d say it's one of those Pinto S-1 models if I didn’t know any better,” said the first guard, taking the binoculars back and having another look. “They were all recalled. Bad circuitry, weird shit in the mainframe, all sorts of nonsense coming out everywhere. Suspension left a little to be desired, too.”
“God, it must be a hundred years old if a day.”
“Nobody driving something like that can have shit to trade. Let’s give him a proper welcome when he reaches the gate,” the first guard said, casting a vindictive grin over to his buddy on the watch.
Junior stopped the car along the wall of the outpost, underneath the very station occupied by the two look-outs. Junior paused for a minute in his sun-cracked upholstered seat, finally reaching into his weathered old trench coat and pulling out a battered, dented iron flask and drinking deep.
“You got a plan other than getting sloshed?”
“Just a little liquid courage to get me goin’,” Junior muttered before opening the door and stepping out into the bright sunlit morning.
The urine hit him dead in the face just as he looked up. His mouth had dropped open to feign a kind greeting to the two men atop the watchtower: most unfortunate timing. The two guardsmen must have been saving up all day after a long night of boozing; the two streams of piss didn’t stop for an absurd amount of minutes. The only thing that could be heard aside from the pitter-patter of urine on leather was something resembling laughter filtered through several inches of metal grating.
Junior cast an irritated glance over toward his car before looking back up at the guardsmen.
“Good morning to you, too,” he shouted.
“Piss off, wanker!” the first guard yelled back.
“I have trade.”
“You got shit,” said the guard. “If that piece of crap Pinto is any indication.”
The car revved its engine ever so softly, lurching forward an inch before expelling a plume of black gas out its tail-end. The machine sputtered horribly. The guards let loose a long peel of laughter.
“Is that fucking tape holding it together?”
“Tape and gum!” said the second. “I can’t believe that thing still runs.”
Junior took off his wide-brimmed brown leather fedora and wiped at some of the urine, looking back up at the guards, grimacing into the sunlight.
“I have trade,” he said again.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Most people call me ‘Junior,’” he replied.
“You’re old enough to be my grandfather, ‘Junior,’” the first guard yelled back.
“Nah. You’d be prettier,” Junior replied. His thinning hair was speckled with gray, just like the spots of beard stubble below it. Crow’s feet highlighted the sides of his old silver eyes as he squinted up at the guards.
“What ‘trade’ could you possibly have?”
“Old world tech. Radio, cerebral net wiring, hologram insertion chips...”
“Shit you picked up on the roadside hoping to swap out for some food, water and gas for that crap-heap there, you mean?” the first guard cut him off.
Junior looked up and grinned.
“Vodka, gin, flot, coke, ex, meth and a couple warm beers.”
Silence came from the tower as the two guards blinked, their smiles shrinking.
“You got all that?” said the first guard, his voice dropping low, throwing a cautionary look over his shoulder down at the outpost within.
“Not a lot, but enough for you two to get fucked off your asses for a good long while,” he slid his urine soaked hat back on his head.
The two guards whispered to each other for a moment, before turning back to Junior.
“Alright, old timer. I’ll give you a little gas cred, food cred and enough water to last you a week.”
“If you’re not greedy with it!” the other guard joined in.
“And repairs to the car.”
“What the fuck for?” the first guard shouted back incredulously. “Trade that piece of shit for scrap and grab a glider. It doesn’t even fucking work anymore, does it?”
“It drives okay.”
“It just drives? Are you serious? Junk it!”
“Can’t,” Junior said. “It’s a piece of shit but it’s my piece of shit. I got it when I was fifteen, had it ever since.”
“Jesus, it is old as fuck then, by the looks of you.”
The second guard elbowed his companion in the ribs sharply.
“Just you down there? No one else in that car?”
Junior cast a quick look at the car before correcting himself, hoping the guards hadn’t noticed the slight movement from way up on the watchtower.
“No. No one else.”
“Alright, alright. We’ll get it looked at. No promises, though. And if it fucking dies in here it’s ours, you hear me?”
Junior spit on the ground again.
“Deal.”
“That your piece of shit car outside?” the bartender grinned, wiping down a mug with an oily rag as Junior slid up to the bar, tossing his huge fedora atop the counter.
“Yea.”
“That duct tape you're using for a window?”
Junior sighed.
“Yea.”
The barkeep laughed and poured him a shot of bourbon.
“This one’s on me, grandpa.”
Junior drank deep while he surveyed the room: a couple of pirates off in the corner, stinking of brine even out here in the middle of nowhere. They looked like they were planning some act of violence, maybe even on Junior, for just being there. What passed as decent pussy was on display along the back wall, old ladies in unsightly brassieres reminiscent of old-west hookers, the kind he used to hear stories about. Mostly, though, it was just rogues barely getting by like him, missing a hand here, an ear there, drinking by themselves or in small little circles of dusty coats. Every one of them was armed to the teeth.
In the far corner a good number of pirates had convened and had begun playing what sounded like a lively game of Hold’Em. Junior didn’t take kindly to pirates, and avoided dealing with them as a sort of policy. But times were tough and he needed more cred than those two watchmen had allotted him.
“Keep, gimme a bottle of hooch.”
Without asking he plopped himself down at the only empty chair at a table of seven. His company stopped their game and stared at him with a combination of confusion and rage. They were pirates, no doubt about it. Golden teeth glinted in the light and he spotted the circuitry of at least two cybernetic limbs peaking out between glove and jacket. Their dialect was unmistakable: somewhere from the Southern Seas.
“If it’s a fuckin’ beatin’ you lookin’ fer, you come to the right place,” said what he took to be the captain, the largest, burliest of the lot, with a thick black beard and a massive black hat.
“I just thought you could do with some real competition,” he grinned slamming the bottle of whiskey on the table. “And I come bearing drink.”
The captain stared at him in silence for a moment, before a slow smile stretched across his weathered face.
“Yer speakin’ me language now, mate. You got cred?”
Junior emptied the weathered pockets of his coat and placed the small golden chips on the table.
“Ain’t much, but I’ll take ‘em.”
“You’ll try,” Junior said grinning.
The other pirates weren’t so pleased, shifting uncomfortably in their seats all around him. But the captain had spoken and the game commenced.
Hand after hand Junior maintained complete control of the game. Winning two, losing one, winning one, losing one, winning three, losing two, making sure to always come out on top but never by too much. It would have worked too, if he didn’t have to play this game against pirates, a breed bred of inherent treachery.
Junior barely noticed when the captain started to watch him. It was given away by a subtle grin, quiet, unassuming, his eyes staring directly at Junior in seemingly good-humored manner. But he had stopped blinking entirely, that soft smile never leaving his lips.
“Sorry, mates, this one’s mine,” Junior grinned, slamming down three nines. A groan erupted from the pirates. He reached forward to grab the pot when the captain, lightning fast, grabbed a knife and brought it down right in the center of Junior’s hand. Junior’s eyes went wide, a silent scream frozen on his lips as he stared at the blood spilling from the wound, his hand pinned against the ply-board table.
“Nice try, old man,” said the captain, reaching forward and grabbing the wrist of the impaled hand, yanking out a nine of spades. The other five pirates leaped up, brandishing knives and guns, all trained at Junior’s head.
“Fucking Christ!” Junior exclaimed, staring down at his hand.
“He ain’t ‘ere to ‘elp ya, mate.” The captain took on a huge, wild-eyed smile as he slowly stood up. He reached down and grabbed the knife, wriggling it a little before yanking it out of the table. Junior grabbed his hand, pulling it in towards his chest, and stumbled back against one of the supports of the small bar hall.
“Let’s see ‘ow much blood this ‘ere old man ‘as in ‘is body, eh boys?”
One of the pirates, a younger man with ratty blond dread-locks and a patch over his left eye, grinned maliciously and stepped forward. Without blinking, Junior buried his huge, black boot in the pirate’s crotch and slammed his good hand into the man’s face, sending the pirate howling to the ground. The remaining team leaped forward, grabbing Junior by the hands, the arms, legs, lifting him bodily off the ground. He struggled, kicking and writhing, but they held him fast and the blood-loss was beginning to drain him, his vision flickering in and out.
“Take ‘im upstairs. Kill ‘im.”
They carried his struggling form all the way upstairs, with one of the younger pirates, now wearing his wide-brimmed brown fedora as a trophy, following close behind. They found a room on the third floor, about thirty feet off the ground with a wide view of the lot outside and, beyond that, a square bustling with noonday traders and charlatans.
“Cut ‘im open then. Toss ‘im to the dogs,” said the captain, grinning.
“Could...could use a little...help...” Junior muttered to himself, gasping for air as the pirates began to pummel his chest and stomach with their bejeweled fists, kicking him in the ribs as he tried to protect his face on the ground.
“I bet you could,” came a shaky voice in his head.
“Fuck...fuck it! Help!”
“What’s in it for me?”
“God damn it!”
A heavy boot came crushing down on his wounded hand, still gushing blood while a second slammed into his groin. It was the blond pirate, exacting his revenge.
“Ah! Fuck! What do you want?”
“’e talkin’ to us?” asked one of the pirates, looking at his captain. The captain’s smile faded a bit, pensively.
“I get to pick where we go next.”
“Fuck no, you stupid, worthless piece of...AHHH!” Junior scream again as a fist slammed into his cheek, shattering teeth. The fist, he was certain, was not organic.
“Deal or no deal?”
“I’m fuckin’ dyin' here!”
“Deal or no deal?”
The captain moved forward, a worried look on his face. “Wait boys, somethin’ ‘ere ain’t right.”
The pirates halted their assault, staring down at Junior, broken and bleeding from head to toe, one eye swollen completely shut.
“Deal,” he whispered. Staring up at the pirates, panting for air.
The sound started softly, a light whirring noise, metal passing gently against metal. But it wasn’t long before an explosion of exhaust erupted outside like a bomb going off. The pirates all flinched and looked around, confused at the incredible noise. Metal ground painfully against metal, churning, scraping, a cacophony of deafening noises followed by a loud explosion that was powerful enough to make the entire building tremble as if some massive weight had suddenly shifted outside and came crashing down onto the ground.
“What the fuck?” asked one of the pirates, staring at his captain. The captain’s eyes were locked on Junior, who, gasping for air on the floor, threw him a bastardly grin through shattered teeth and bloodied cheeks. He locked eyes with the captain.
“Gentlemen,” he grinned. “Meet Pinto.”
The wall suddenly burst apart, hard ply and steel shredding like paper. The impact alone sent two of the pirates hurling across the room. The others scrambled for cover, over and under the bed, or huddled behind a flimsy folding partition, one even played dead on the ground, all of them gawking with wide, terrified eyes at the massive scraped metallic arm that had just cleared away the wall.
A giant metal arm held together with duct tape and gum.
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