flash friday, 1-31-14. crack sugar stars and stripes in Flash Friday

My most sincere apologies. In a day rife with fuck-ups, fuck-tardery and fucking-running/sideways, this adds nothing to the greater good. It’s a contingency flash. Swear I got a real one coming. And Prompts. If I made prompts today they would be variations of fuck.

crack, sugar, stars and stripes

“Honey? Sugar? Baby Doll?”

“Fucking What?”

“Hand me another clip?”

“Oh. Sure. Yeah, hang on. Cover me?”

Breath breath nod and I popped my glock over the mud, concrete, sand, glass, blood, husks of friends and enemies, whatever the hell else was up there, and fired off the last four rounds blind and rhythmically while she dove for the kitchen. Three knives came flying, blind, out of the kitchen, drew fire and a wrinkled Burger King Sack with five clips flew towards me. I popped the empty out, clicked a new one in place; breath breath breath nod, I looked over the cushion towards where her knives had drawn fire; hand, shoulder, thigh, moving from behind a lode bearing beam. Three shots. Someone grunted.

“You crack heads best heat up the glass, it’s your last hit”

You could hear the sweat in his voice, smell the pain above the powder. However many partners he had were flanking us. You can’t intimidate a crack head or insult me with a crack habit I didn’t have.

She’d rolled with another fast food bag filled with loose shells and was filling the cylinders of both 38’s. A couple of days ago we had flushed a nest out a some county sherrifs department. They were wearing dirty brown uniforms with the stars and stripes shoulder patch and using cop issue pieces. The cops were probably long eaten, or, in the day this town was easy pickings.

We crouched back to back with attention to the peripherals.

The talker, the guy with my round in, I think, his thigh, was shouting out more crack slurs and covering the wetness in voice with gurgling taunts like a bong --- he didn’t know much about crack either. The canibals didn’t talk so much. These were scavengers, and, though it wasn’t great tactical strategy, Diversion to flank was at least rational. The cannibals weren’t rational.

A glint of steel at three o’clock; oh, they wanted ammo. Thing is no matter how good you are with a knife you need to either get close or plant yourself with an unobstructed field to throw. He stepped. I planted a neat little target group in his chest. I felt her head move

“Twelve” I hissed “he’ll come from twelve”.

And he did, except it wasn’t a he, a girl, a little girl, maybe ten or eleven, arms out to her side, the knife, too big for her, rested in the open right pal; eyes closed arms out head tilted like jesus, in some churchs, on a invisible cross.

The crack talker made his desperate last assulat, coming out blazing; two rounds and the hammer clicked on empty chambers. His thigh was slick with blood. I put two in his chest and one between the eyes. The girl kept coming, she dropped the knife, she kept coming. Except for the talkers gurgling the place was quiet.

The kid was crying, eyes shut tight, stumbling over the rubble towards us.

“Your call pet,” I said in response to the love handle squeeze, or where my love handles would be if I’d eaten a full meal in the last three months.

There was infinite time and motion trapped between her and the kid, space, smokey, powder and blood space, I stayed crouched, back to back, so I couldn’t see the kid. I could hear her.

“Please?” the kid choked.

Pop pop pop. Cop issues sound like toys. The kid folded like paper, hardly made a sound as she hit.