You guys have all been putting me to shame with the way you get a new story up every other day, so I finally decided to post this up. If any of you read my story 'This War' in the Action/Adventure Fiction section, this is the same thing; I just edited it up and added on the rest of the prologue. Please, please be brutally honest and cruel if you critique. I can take it, and I want to know if I'm still making the same mistakes or if I'm making new mistakes.
Oh, yeah: if strong language and/or violence offends you, read no further. Otherwise, enjoy.
Question: It’s been over five hours since I came into town with my kid brother and his punk girlfriend, so why am I still freezing my ass off on the wrong side of the Mainstream with them?
Answer: To make sure Marri and Z don’t get into trouble- an annoying habit of theirs- and to make sure they don’t get jumped by any First Street punks.
I’m starting to regret turning down the offers I got to chill with my band today in favor of hanging out with these two kids, especially since all they’ve been doing is smoke cigarettes and stare at the colorless sky. No conversation whatsoever. The only general period of time when I’ve said more than two words every half hour was when Sashay Carson stopped by the local music store around noon, and we hung out for a while talking about badass old rappers and heavy metal bands.
But that was before her gangster older brother and his college friends stopped by, and Carson Senior threatened to slash my face up with his butterfly knife. I usually get along all right with Carson Senior- which means he won’t kill me on a whim and I stay out of his way- but he gets pissed whenever guys even look at his little sister, period.
I cast a glance at my irritating younger brother and his ratty little girlfriend. I’m never going to be able to fathom why a sweet kid like Marri is interested in a demonic girl like Z, as long as I still breathe. There are only two apparent things they have in common: they both enjoy smoking cigarettes and picking fights with people who could slit their throats and sleep well that same night. I seriously don’t know what they see in each other.
I focused my gaze on them, remembering another thing they had in common, and shivered quietly. Marri, Z, and I had all been born on the East Side of Loudon Heights, which meant we were in Third Street by default. It’s always been hard for me to comprehend that kids like fourteen-year-old Marri and thirteen-year-old Z are technically in the gang; I automatically think of freaky-looking bastards like Carson Senior and his best friend Rodriguez whenever I think of Third Street punks. They’re so deep into the gang that they answer directly to Johnny Marauder. I’ve only seen him twice, the first time when I was thirteen, but it’s impossible for me to forget the feel of his eyes on me.
“What’re you thinking about, Marshall?” asked Marri, idly taking a drag on his cigarette. He’s always seemed to have an odd gift for knowing what other people are thinking off their body language and the looks on their faces, so I knew he was truly stumped when he actually needed to open his mouth and ask about what’s going on in my head. He never seems to realize it when I’m annoyed with him, though….
“I’m thinking of that homeless kid up on 34th and 2nd Street,” I answered.
Z glanced up curiously when I said that, and Marri obligingly probed, “Why?”
“I’m thinking the next time I see him, I’m going to hand him a damn jacket. I’m taking the hike home without you two punks if you don’t pack it up soon.”
“Fuck off, Marshall,” said Z dully, looking back at the gray sky.
“That’s Mr. Marshall to you, kid.” I still wasn’t sure why she had first referred to me as ‘Mr. Marshall,’ but I hadn’t let her stop calling me that since. It’s beginning to irritate her now, which was why it amuses me so much. I think of her as more of a weird-ass little sister than my brother’s girlfriend, since she talks and acts so much like a guy, which means I have no problem with whacking her around or annoying her when she ticked me off.
“You know you wouldn’t leave us alone in enemy territory, Marshall,” said Marri, in that brutally honest way of his. “You’d regret it if we got jumped.”
Damn him.
“True,” I responded. “But only because I wouldn’t let some First Street punks have all the fun of putting you two in the hospital.” I shot him a menacing glare. “I would have no qualms about landing you and your delinquent girlfriend in St. Michael’s for two weeks, Marri. Never doubt that.”
His already pale face went even whiter when I said that. Did he actually believe me? “We’re going to be done soon, Marshall. Chill out.”
I sighed with exasperation, impatience, and coldness as I kicked back against the wall of the pawn shop, once again. I listened absentmindedly to Marri and Z’s quiet conversation as I waited for them to finish smoking their way through a third pack of cigarettes; my comment about the hospital seemed to have opened up the door for a discussion about all the kids who got alcohol poisoning at homecoming last month. I, admittedly, was quite surprised Z hadn’t been one of those kids. She had crashed on our couch that night, trashed out of her mind.
I was just beginning to tune myself out to their voices when Marri said, out of the blue, “What’s wrong, Z?” I glanced up at her and realized she was raking her hands through her greasy hair, which she always did when she was nervous.
“Isn’t that Muskrat’s car?” she muttered, jerking her chin at a black pickup truck nearby. The only thing relatively knew about the rusty truck was the crimson spray paint, covering the right side of it and a little less than half the back.
Marri studied it for a moment before shaking his head. “No. It’s Arachnid’s.”
“Who cares which son of a bitch it belongs to?” I growled. “They’re both high-ranking punks from First Street. We’re going to get shot up if we don’t get out of here soon.”
“You just want to leave because you’re freezing your balls off, Mr. Marshall,” snapped Z.
I sneered at her. “I do want to have kids one day; this is true.” I cast a restless glance at the truck. “But that’s not the only reason. You guys heard about Ally Jameson getting jumped, didn’t you?”
Z snorted. “There’s no one on either side of the Mainstream who hasn’t.”
The man who runs First Street is named Scorpion Jameson. I’ve never even seen him around town before, because from what I hear, he never walks land east of the Mainstream, but I’ve seen his fifteen-year-old sister around school occasionally. She got beaten badly by some college kids from Third Street less than two weeks ago, and everyone on First Street has been raring for massive amounts of painful retaliation ever since.
I glanced around apprehensively. How in the name of hell did Marri and Z convince me to stand on the west side of the Mainstream with them? I don’t know. We’ve been smoking cigarettes here for longer than I feel comfortable with. I’d be willing to bet good money that every First Street punk who saw us considered it something of a slap in the face, and I would bet more on the fact that they would have definitely informed someone higher up, like Muskrat and Arachnid, Alex Jameson’s right-hand men.
“We’re screaming to get shot up by just standing here,” I muttered, twitching anxiously. “Do you know how long that car’s been over there, Z?”
She didn’t know. Neither did Marri.
I heard gunshots ring out in the distance. That isn’t the most uncommon thing in the world in Loudon Heights, but both Marri and Z jumped about a foot in the air.
“You ready to go home now?” I asked patiently.
“Mm-hm,” muttered Marri, sucking on his cigarette. I pushed myself off the wall, turned sharply to the right, and started walking. Z grabbed Marri’s hand and began to tug him along, following me.
“We’ll cross over at 27th Street,” I said absently, reaching into my jacket to grip my shotgun.
Marri read my mind, as usual. “That won’t be of much use to us in a drive-by, Marshall.”
I cracked my shoulders back, clenching the piece tighter. Having my gun on me at all times gave me a false sense of security, which was both nice and cruel. “True,” I admitted softly. “It might help if we get ganged up on in the street, though.” I glanced over to the road on my left, grimacing. The chances of a head-on confrontation were seeming quite slim. “Marri, Z,” I said distractedly, gesturing to my right. “Come walk next to me.”
Marri shrugged a protective arm around Z’s shoulders and quickened his pace, so I was between them and the street. I couldn’t help rolling my shoulders and glancing around nervously every few seconds; being west of the Mainstream gave me severe paranoia. It was a good thing we only had about two minutes of walking before we got to 26th Street; we’d probably be in the clear if we chilled at my upperclassmen friend Jared’s house for a while.
I had just reached this satisfying conclusion when Z said sharply, “The car just started moving, Mr. Marshall.”
I resisted the urge to glance over my shoulder to see if she was right, but her truthfulness was confirmed when the screeching of tires on asphalt rang through the air.
“Marshall…” said Marri warningly.
“Keep walking,” I growled, putting a hand on his shoulder. I cast a surreptitious glance over my shoulder and felt my stomach lurch down a few inches; I recognized Arachnid’s dark face, bordered by dreadlocks, in the driver’s seat while Muskrat, ratty-faced and pale-skinned, sat tensely in the passenger side.
“Mr. Marshall…” whispered Z apprehensively.
“Don’t run,” I growled through gritted teeth, struggling to follow my own advice. The rumbling of the pickup truck’s crappy engine was getting louder, roaring obnoxiously in my ears.
We walked in silence for roughly ten seconds before Marri hissed, “Oh, hell,” and I looked to the street to see why. The car was almost level with us now, only about ten feet away, and the passenger window was rolled down.
The barrel of a semiautomatic gun was pointing out of it.
“Hit the pavement!” I yelled, shoving Marri down to the ground. He yanked his girlfriend down with him as I automatically ripped my gun out of my jacket and curled my arms around my head, beginning my drop to the ground.
Muskrat opened fire on the general vicinity.
I felt four sharp weights slam into my chest and shoulders, bursts of pain ripping through my skin with each shot. I staggered backward two steps, green lights flashing in front of my eyes, and tripped over Marri’s leg. I stumbled once before crashing toward the ground, and let out a scream as the sudden jolt sent a tearing pain through my line of wounds. I curled up into a ball and sucked in my breath through my teeth, gripping onto the fabric of my shirt.
“Son of a bitch!” yelled Marri, shooting to his feet. The sound of rubber grinding against pavement shrieked out as the pickup truck streaked away. “Fuck!”
“Marshall!” screamed Z, crawling over to me. She tried to pry my hands away from my chest, to see how badly I’d been wounded, but I ducked my head down and curled up even tighter, clenching my teeth.
“Marri,” she whispered. The panic in her voice was poorly disguised. “He’s hurt bad, Marri.” She shook her head, hard. “Shit! Shit!”
“Hey!” yelled Marri. “Hey! You! Call an ambulance!”
The shadow of a woman in high heels fell over me as she noticed Marri speaking to her, before she stepped daintily around me and continued walking without a word. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, struggling to hold back my burning tears.
“Hey!” I heard Marri step away from me as he spoke desperately to someone else. “Sir! Call the hospital! Please!”
“Get away from me, kid,” snapped the man disgustedly, stepping over me and striding across the street.
This was the West Side, First Street territory. No one was going to help us over here. They were probably going to blame me for bleeding out all over their sidewalk. I began to shiver hard as I realized this, and Marri knelt down next to me at once, abandoning all hopes of an ambulance. His crazed green eyes were wide with fear.
“I-It’s going to be all right, Marshall,” he managed to stammer. “You’re going to be o-okay.”
I bit down on my lip so hard that I tasted blood, those damn tears streaming down my face. I hated being seen like this, especially by Marri. I’m supposed to be the strong one, the one who keeps the family together. He isn’t supposed to see me like this…
I attempted to push myself into a sitting position, and Marri automatically reached out to put his hands on my shoulders, trying to push me back down. He jerked away from me at once, staring blankly down at his palms. The blood on his hands- my blood- looked almost black.
Z bit down hard on her knuckle, trying not to scream or swear.
There was a heatedly numb feeling washing through my entire body from my stomach, making me feel like puking and pissing at the same time. I felt a heaving reaction at the back of my throat the moment I acknowledged this, and when I tried to push myself up into a relative sitting position, so I could barf on the sidewalk and not all over myself, a slashing pain ran through my stomach. I had to stifle a shriek as I collapsed back to the sidewalk.
“It’s- crap- you-” Z was stammering almost as hard as Marri. She swallowed down her words and began again. “Your ribs probably got cracked,” she whispered. “Or internal bleeding. It’s probably some shit like that.”
Brilliant. The heat in my body was slowly turning into liquid coldness that rivaled ten-degrees-below weather, and I shivered even harder than before, groaning.
“Mr. Marshall…” Z started crying, holding my hand. Marri wrapped an arm around her waist, muttering something halfway incoherent to both her and me about how it was all going to be okay. Pure bullshit.
The front of my shirt was soaked with blood. I put one of my hands up to my chest, hazily curious, and felt my face become even paler as blood gushed from between my fingers. Marri stopped his endless stuttering to reach in and yank my hand away from my bloody shirt; I could tell by the wild look in his eyes that my face was already too white for his comfort.
I twisted my hand around and gripped onto his wrist, trying to push myself up a few inches, so I could look into his eyes.
“Marshall?” he whispered.
Deciding that sitting up was altogether impossible, I forced myself to whisper, “It’s- going to-” I coughed, hard, spitting up blood. Z closed her eyes tightly. “It’s going to- be okay- Marri. Don’t- worry, man. It’s- going to be- fine, Marri.” The splitting pain in my chest had receded to a dull, burning ache; I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
Z was still sobbing, rocking back and forth. Her choked, rasping voice reached me from across a long tunnel; she was muttering ‘Mr. Marshall’ over and over again, in combination with random strings of swearwords.
“Z,” said Marri intensely. She wrenched her eyes away from me to look up at him. “I need you to get help.”
“But he’s fucking dying,” she stammered.
Wasn’t that kind of the point of her getting help? Marri raised his eyebrows at her.
“Right.” Z dragged her sleeve across her eyes and stood up quickly, her shadow falling over me. I tried to squint up at her, attempting to see her face, but my vision was going blurry and bright, turning into a mass of white and gray. I struggled to make my vision clear again, but the brightness slowly took over my eyes, whiting out my views of my brother Marri, of his girlfriend Z, of the snow-encrusted buildings, of the colorless sky.
I slumped back down to the ground, my grip on Marri’s wrist slackening as I slipped down into merciful death.
Author's Note: It doesn't end here.
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