Twins in Death: Chapter One - Part Five

Twins in Death

A Tale of The Weirdo

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

 

Chapter One: The Ballad of Captain Scourge

 

 

 

March 10^th, 2002

12:08 p.m.

 

            The Weirdo arrived in Time Square just as Tommy did, and they noticed each other almost immediately. Thomas Gunner was about five foot ten and dressed in a royal blue suit. With the suit he also wore a blue fedora, which covered his blue eyes from the sun. If someone was looking to form a description of Tommy, you could do worse than to combine Archie Goodwin with Sam Spade; or possibly Nick Charles.

 

            You might even remark that he looked a great deal like the sometimes masked adventurer from the thirties who shared the same name. If you didn’t know certain facts, you might think his resemblance was positively uncanny. The fact that he still to this day wore the same royal blue suit that the same figure wore all those years ago should have been a tip that something was up, but it was amazing how few people noticed it.

 

            He waved to The Weirdo as he walked into the war zone that Times Square had become. The area was littered with shattered glass and pieces of advertisements. The street looked worse than it did after New Years Eve. The Weirdo’s gray trench coat and fedora made him fairly easy to find, particularly since he usually wore them with whatever outfit he happened to have on. Of course finding The Weirdo was particularly easy for Tommy, as he always knew where The Weirdo was.

 

            Tommy had driven The Weirdo’s car which was a midnight blue sedan that looked very much like a cross between a nineteen thirty one Packard and a Ferrari. It was also the most protected thing in the square at the moment. It was for this reason that Tommy was reluctant to get out of the car. The sedan had a certain magic about it, like it had attained sentience though some arcane process. The car would protect you, it would save you if you needed saving. If you left the safety of the car though, it couldn’t do anything for you.

 

            Time Square is never empty, but it was emptyish at the moment. The two streets that made most of what is really a sort of sliced off triangle had cars and people, but they were running and the cars were driving through very fast. The Weirdo often thought that the average New Yorker had all the preservation instincts of a lemming. Though he knew that to be a misnomer, as lemmings don’t actually commit suicide and the Disney movie where they are shown killing themselves was faked.

 

            Still a metaphor is kind of killed if you explain the truth behind people’s prejudices.

 

            The Weirdo looked at the flailing ball of lightning that was blasting overhead. The ball of lightning had caused a sort of surging wind that instead of blowing down on them, caused air to be pulled up towards it. Bits of paper flew into the air until they flew out of the eddies of air and spiraled back down to the street.

 

            People banged into The Weirdo in their rush to get to and from their appointments that were apparently more important than their lives, which showed how rushed they were. New Yorkers bump into each other, this is a fact, but they don’t bump a certain class of person. The Weirdo belonged to the class of people you don’t bump, along with hobos, drunks, and Mafioso. Of course because of his actions, there was no mafia left in New York, so it kind of made him feel like a bum or hobo.

 

            Nevertheless, they were banging into him in their panic. They ran to and fro, keeping their eyes up toward the sky and nearly being killed by the cars, whose drivers also had their heads looking towards the sky. Toward the figure who was at the center of the long fingers of lightning that bolted all about them.

 

            Two police helicopters where trying to threaten the figure, their lights shining uselessly at him in an attempt to distract his attention.  There were people on bullhorns trying to tell him to surrender. He simply blasted at the helicopters and sent them spiraling for a moment. The pilots managed to regain control, though one got a runner caught on a building’s railing and took the railing along with it. Fires were breaking out all over the place and the man in the boiling rage of electricity was dashing back and forth blasting emergency vehicles as they came to try and help the situation.

 

            No one was dead though, and only a few people got more than a nasty shock from the maelstrom of rage above. The person above was angry, and wanted to hurt people, but he wasn’t murderous. He might hurt people quite badly and he might kill someone on accident, but that wasn’t his plan. He was just lashing out like a wounded animal. He had no plan, just a wish to be top dog for a while.

 

            The Weirdo looked at the situation and came to a conclusion- someone had to do something.  He waited for a moment for someone to leap into the air and do something.  He continued to wait because he didn’t want some superhero to claim he was horning in on their turf. He was a crime fighter, not a super hero. This person with the lightning and the nearly shooting down helicopters was clearly a super villain. The Weirdo would have gone so far as to pull out his contract, which stated he was only to tangle with insane immortals and the mob. He didn’t have a contract though, and thus nothing to point to. He wondered if there was a Superhero union manual that he could point to. There could be union rules here.

           

            He thought suddenly of an old castle in Paris. It was a museum now, but it had been a castle. He had visited the place when it was still being used as a castle, and had been there when it was a museum. The Weirdo had done an awful lot of time traveling during the near seventy years he was gone, and this place suddenly came to mind. It was an inexplicable thought, but there it was. He found that he could make a map of the place in his head during both its castle and museum days. He compared the differences between the two and came to conclusion that the reason this place was suddenly in his mind was because that was one place where he would rather be than here.

 

            He waited for that someone to do something, a superhero of some variety. Maybe a mutant with metal claws coming from his knuckles, or a kid who sticks to walls would do. Maybe a fellow dressed up like a flying rodent or something, he’d even settle for a blind lawyer if he had to. It would take a while for a blind lawyer to get here, so he should be patient.

 

            The problem with waiting for a hero to show up was that so often, they didn’t. You waited for someone to do something and no one did. The heroes had all pretty much vanished in the late fifties. They had come back during the eighties, but most of them had died or left the game by the mid nineties. There were a few costumed heroes who tried to fight crime, but many of them were as localized in their neighborhoods as the street gangs. The heavy hitters that had come back were mostly working the international circuit or possibly off fighting in one of those secret alien wars that Jack had mentioned once or twice. There had been a few who appeared for a short time since The Weirdo’s return, but they mostly lived in other cities.  New York had once been the center of Super Heroics, and it was starting again, but it wasn’t ready for this guy yet. He thought that in another year they probably wouldn’t be able to turn a corner without seeing protectors in tights. Right now though, there weren’t any heroes. Still, someone had to do something pretty soon. He began to strongly suspect that the someone was him, and possibly Tommy.

 

            “Omega’s taking his damn sweet time, isn’t he?” The Weirdo asked aloud.

 

            “Omega’s in Siam.”

 

            “Is he?”

 

            “Yeah.”

 

            “Ah, shitmonkeys.” The Weirdo said walking towards the car.

 

            He opened the trunk of the sedan and drew out two Thompson submachine guns. The antiques were the preferred weapon for these two when it came to automatic fire. Others might have their MP 5’s, their TEC 9s and their eight hundred rounds per minute, but not these two. They liked the slow rhythm the Thompson’s offered as well as a forty five round which was larger than most submachine guns were willing to fire these days. Also the slower speed meant they didn’t rip right through people and into the person behind them. Besides, there was a maximum of about eighty bullets in the MP5. You’d be done shooting before you even could tell if you’d gotten the bugger.

 

            “We gonna try and gun him down?” Tommy asked, a little incredulously.

 

            “Not really.” The Weirdo said as he slid the drum magazine into place. “I mean it’s a place to start but I think it’s going to come to more than that. These should get his attention though.”

 

            “Oh, good.” Tommy said. “I was afraid you had a plan or something.”

 

            “Gimme time.” The Weirdo said. “I haven’t dealt with someone shooting lightning from their fingers before. Immortals yes, lightning, no.”

 

            The two men ran out from the alley they were standing in and moved into the street. Captain Scourge was sweeping low to the ground and causing explosions of glass from the windows. As Captain Scourge flew over them, they aimed and fired their machine guns. The distinctive slow clack, clack, clack of the submachine guns made all those who weren’t already watching with amazement stop and watch. This included Captain Scourge, who stopped flying and hung in the air, his ball of electricity sending the bullets flying away before they could get near him due to the change in his electromagnetic field.

 

            They stopped firing once it was obvious that they had his attention, but they had no idea what to do after that though. He hung in the air for a moment and then lowered to the ground. They saw how thin he was, how very young he looked. He might not have been more than fifteen or so. The young man looked at them with astonishment as he came towards them. The Weirdo could see a single red spot on the boy’s forehead with a white center, the pimple looked ready to burst at any moment.

 

            “You’re The Weirdo.” He said.

 

            “Yeah.” The Weirdo said, the gun still held tightly in both hands, ready to come up and fire.

 

            “I attracted The Weirdo.” He said. “I really am a super villain then.”

 

            He smiled wide and put his fists on his hips, threw his head back and laughed. The Weirdo and Tommy stood, mouths agape, they had no idea what to do with him. What does one do with a person who actually puts their fists on their hips and throws back their head to laugh? Not only that, but this was just a kid. A super powered kid, but a kid nonetheless. They looked at him, as he laughed and Tommy blinked. He took in the lighting bolt shirt, the flowing pants, and of course the cape.

 

            “Boy been shopping at International Male or something.”

 

            “Weak joke.” The Weirdo said.

 

            “Best I could do under the circumstances.”

 

            “I know who you are.” The young man said. “And now you’ll know me!” He flew into the air and screamed with joy.

 

            “What the riotous fuck is going on?” The Weirdo asked.

 

            “I am Captain Scourge!” He said firing lightning bolts from his hands and causing the glass in the building above them to explode and shower them with bits of safety glass. Bits of glass bounced as they hit the ground and broke into even smaller pieces than they had before.

 

            “Let’s try shooting him again.” Tommy said.

 

            “No good.” The Weirdo said.

 

            “Please?”

 

            “Sorry.”

 

            “We could run away and hide under the bed until the world makes sense again.”

 

            There was a pause. During this pause The Weirdo actually considered this option, which was not an odd thing. He considered all options Tommy gave him with equal gravity. There was certain attractiveness to the idea of going to hide under the bed until the world made sense. The problem was that The Weirdo suspected that if they were prepared to wait till the world made sense they might never come out again.

 

            He looked around for the other heroes, but of course they still hadn’t shown. He was not going to take away some young superhero’s chance to take down this super villain. He was very much in favor of a new glut of costumed heroes. Every time one of them beat up a street punk, it was one less for him to take care of. The problem was, no heroes made themselves known, and he felt he knew why. He looked around and thought that perhaps they had met the hero and they were them.

 

            “No, I think we’ve got to deal with this.” The Weirdo said finally.

 

            “Shit.” Tommy grumbled.

 

            “Sorry man.”

 

            “It’s okay.” Tommy said.

 

            “Jack where the hell are you?” The Weirdo asked into the small pen like device.

 

            “Target International Male boy about twenty feet up?”

 

            “That joke has already been made.” The Weirdo said testily into the microphone.

 

            The bolt of blue hit Captain Scourge like a genetically enhanced alien wearing a thin but incredibly powerful suit of armor that was built form parts of the ship that brought him to this planet. It seemed a lot more accurate than a ton of bricks, okay? Jack Uniton was known the world over as The Paladin, an armor wearing superhero who had been part of England’s hero project.

 

            Jack’s body flew through the air with such force and struck the young man with such power that he forced him down to the ground before Captain Scourge knew what had hit him. Jack had begun to roll as they hit the pavement, shielding the young man from the impact. He didn’t want to kill him after all, just stop him and he had no idea what the guy could take.

 

            The Weirdo ran towards the two of them as Captain Scourge swung a fist into Jack’s solar plexus. The fist itself offered no damage but it was tipped with a bolt of lightning which was powerful enough to throw Jack ten feet into the air and give Captain Scourge a momentary look and feel of an anime character using their recognized attack. Jack sailed into the air and spiraled around to catch himself before he struck the ground.

 

            “Yeah!” Captain Scourge flew into the air and pumped his fist, wildly excited. “I just flattened The Paladin out!”

 

            “Oh… we are going to fight now.” Jack said pulling the helmet off and spitting out a mouthful of blood.

 

            For an alien, Jack Uniton looked incredibly like the perfect image of the Aryan male. His physique was perfection itself; his blue eyes and blonde hair were clean and well placed. He acted much like a properly raised English gentleman, which isn’t so odd as he had spent most of his life there, but then that explanation will come later. He struck the chest of his suit, and cracked his knuckles, sliding the helmet back on quickly.

 

            “Not yet Jack.” The Weirdo said.

 

            Tommy Gunner was leaning back and watching the young man spiral and loop through the air and was picking up information from his mind. Tommy being one of the world’s foremost mind readers was still having a tough time reading the disorganized thoughts. Mind reading isn’t the simple thing people think it is. Few people think in the organized way most of us like to think they do. If we had to read our own minds, we’d find they’re pretty disorganized places really. He was trying to find a place where he could strike the boy’s mind but the damn kid wouldn’t sit still. His mind was a swirling excited mass of jelly.

 

            Jack flew into the air again and hit the youth like a linebacker might if they could fly and had the strength of twenty men. Or at least that was the plan, what actually happened was he got near the kid but then a lot of electricity ran into his body and seemed to give him one big body spasm, and he tumbled to the earth. It wasn’t the pain the bothered him, it was the moment of paralysis that bothered him.

           

            This would be a time, in a comic book or a movie, that The Weirdo would likely make a quip or some sort of comment. Comic book heroes and movie stars have an amazing ability to have a conversation while fighting. Unfortunately if you’re really fighting, conversation doesn’t come that easily, and thus The Weirdo didn’t say anything as Captain Scourge spun through the air in joy.

           

            “I took out The Paladin!” Captain Scourge yelled as he spiraled into the air, lighting leaping off his body in careless bolts.

 

            He seemed to have no regard for what he was doing and was only blasting the birds out the air by accident. The electricity though, strung itself out, looking for something to kill. It lapped up the small souls and sucked them into the boy who was growing progressively stronger.

 

            The Weirdo watched him spiral and jump and then he himself flew into the air. The Weirdo didn’t have any armor, or fancy alien DNA to help him fly, so his movement in the air was a little erratic, thus that made him incredibly hard for Captain Scourge to blast. The purple white blasts zipped past inches away from The Weirdo who was spiraling and weaving through the air because unless he was traveling at great speed, a straight line was neigh impossible for him. He’d never gotten that good at flight, and he found it incredibly difficult as well as overly tiring, but he could manage it from time to time.

           

            The upshot was that The Weirdo was about three feet away before Captain Scourge could get a good bead on our hero, and by that time The Weirdo kicked him in the head, which provided a satisfyingly loud crack. Captain Scourge’s head spun and the thin rubber band on his mask snapped. The Weirdo’s foot had caught the mask and yanked it away when he hit the young villain. There was nothing particularly special about the face under the mask. It wasn’t remarkable in any way really. The Weirdo then came in suddenly with a fist in the stomach and a knee in the face. This was followed by another sharp kick and everything went black for the young man known as Captain Scourge.

 

© 2012 Autumn Knight Productions

The Artists in the Office

Fancy and I, at work.

Been watching Dr Who

So we discovered that Amazon is now streaming through the PS3. If you have Prime, and we do, you get certain things for free. Mostly things that the studio can claim were paid for a long time ago. You can’t get Game of Thrones or Leverage free, but you can get Dr. Who and Star Trek in HD. As a result, Syd is watching Dr. Who from the “beginning” by which I mean the start of the current run.

Now, I’ve never been much of a Dr Who fan, mostly because they deny the existence of Peter Cushing. He was The Doctor in the two movies they made. But anyway, I watched an episode or two with Syd, because it was either that or sulk in my office. So I watched some of the show with Syd.

I… really hate Rose Tyler. This is not a character. This is almost, but not quite, a Mary Sue. A Mary-Jane if you will. Not a main character, but a hanger-on, who exhibits many characteristics of a Sue.

She’s not smart, or tough, or clever, or witty, she’s just… special. She manages to get through situations by virtue of her special specialness. She defeated the Dalek with her specialness and opened him up to her with the special power of her special love. She never actually does anything, or works anything out to any great degree, she’s just a special little time traveler in ever special way and she’s getting specialer and specialer every special, special day… and I hate her! I don’t get the appeal, I really don’t.

Also, while I’m on daleks, why are they considered scary? They look like R2-D2's stereotypically aggressively gay older brother. The one that’s into studded leather. I don’t get how these things are scary, but then I also didn’t get how the Americans in the show didn’t get that they weren’t hurting it and kept firing single rounds at it even though that hadn’t done anything to that point.

Of course, almost everything about the Americans was wrong anyway. From weapons to uniforms to insignia, to the flag on their shoulder. And once again, Americans are the go-to “evil not even for the sake of being evil but just evil as a part of being stupid” bad guy. Which is annoying coming from England. I mean, they have a go at us for being fat, drunk, and having teen mothers, when the UK has the number one slot on their side of the world in all categories. And they’re privatizing their healthcare right now. I mean, it’s like some Head of the East India Company who has enslaved, starved, robbed, raped and murdered millions of Indians coming to Massachusetts in 1870 and telling us that we’ve got a huge problem with racism because we used to have slavery.

Just saying!

Where was I?

Ah yes, now I have seen some of the episodes with Martha, and I like her. I haven’t seen any of the other companions except one or two episodes with Susan, and she’s just sort of there. Syd watched some episodes of the first doctor because she has this thing about wanting to view things from the beginning, even though I keep telling her that’s a mistake. You try to watch all of a show like Dr Who and you’ll end up mired in some of those storylines that go on for 30 episodes and never seem to get anywhere. I’ve seen some of those, Dr Who was a seriously talky show back in the day. Less talky now, more action. One might say “More American” if one wanted to twist the knife in the British side, and I do.

Anyway, I’ll probably watch some more.

The Tutu Challenge

So… I took this photo of me in a tiara last week. It got a few different responses. There were six “OMG! SO CUTE!” of various kinds, three “You’ve got the prettiest eyes” and one “Wow, you really do just wear that tiara sometimes. Huh.”

And then, there was one comment, and that’s why we’re here today. “The tiara is cute. Do you also have a tutu?”

And no, of course I don’t. I didn’t have the tiara until a Secret Internet Girlfriend bought it for me. I don’t get a lot of things until SIG’s get them for me. I only get as much gay porn as I do because of a nice girl in England who bafflingly sends me erotic novels that fail to include dinosaurs humping. Lots of girls send me things, and I tend to photograph most of them.

I don’t have a tutu, so I can’t be photographed wearing a tutu…

You see where this is going, don’t you? IF you want to see me in a tutu, you’ll have to buy one and flutter your pretty little eyes. I’ve got one picked out on my Amazon wishlist, so you don’t even have to bother stalking me and looking up my address. On the other hand, you could just send me a movie.

I'll take a photo of whatever shows up first.

Pics of a knife

Baby’s First Noir Part 9 (end)

Baby’s First Noir
Part 9


He had planned to go to Petey the Possum’s, but not to hurt him. He was just going to scare him and explain why it was wrong to have friends like Chipper and Chopper. When he got there though, he saw Bertie the Bunny and Wally the Weasel going in. Then he heard Petey scream.

As he ran across the opening toward Petey’s tree, he saw something he had sort of expected. Billy the Badger came running out from the bushes, gun in hand. Billy stopped when his eyes fixed on the squirrel. He looked confussed for a moment, until his old friend hissed at him.

“Wally and Bertie.”

“You stay here.” Billy said aiming his big paw at him. “I’ve got to call for back up.”

Petey screamed again, but this time the scream was cut off by a sudden sharp shot and a flash of light. The two animals looked at the tree and headed quickly for cover as Bertie was shoved out of the door, followed by Wally.

“I tolds you, nones of that on the ‘tard.”

“Just having some fun with him.” Bertie said.

“Nones of that.” Wally repeated as they walked away.

“They’d get off.” The squirrel said standing up and starting to stalk the two of them.

“You can’t.” Billy said, grabbing his arm.

“Take your hand off me Billy.” He snapped. “If you’re not going to take me in, then just leave me the hell alone.”

Billy watched as he stalked after them, wondering if he should follow.

Outside of Benny’s Dinner, Wally made a phone call.

“He went nuts.” Wally said into the phone. “Started cutting bits of the tard off.”

Had they been watching carefully, they would have seen a grey squirrel slowly moving towards them. They might also have seen the small mouse who served as owner and short order cook, coming from the other direction. Bertie stared at the ground though, and only looked when the squirrel deliberately kicked a can across the street.

“Wally.”

“You don’ts talk.” Wally snapped.

“Fuck.” Bertie said as he saw the squirrel pull a knife from his pocket and depress the button that snapped the blade into place.

Bertie started to reach into his pocket, but there was suddenly a weight on his back. Wally turned to see the mouse, in white pants and a t-shirt, leap on Bertie’s back and wrap a length of wire around his neck twice before pulling the ends tight. Bertie made a sound like “GACK!” before all sound was cut off. The bunny reared back and the two of them smashed into the phone booth, toppling it over.

Wally watched the phone as he fell over, and the glass shattered around him. His face was cut by the falling shards and his snout was broken when the phone snapped off and crashed into his face. He was just getting to grips with the pain of this when there was a new sharp, painful stab in his side. A paw pressed his head against the glass and pavement and someone started to talk to him.

“I wasn’t going to kill Petey.” The squirrel said. “You shouldn’t have either.”

A fresh lance of pain went up from his neck, where the squirrel had slashed across the vein. He could feel himself bleeding out, and still tried to pull himself from the wreckage of the phone booth. He died before he could so much as pull himself up though, and he slumped back into the booth.

“How are you Benny?” He asked, looking at the dead weasel.

“Fine.” Benny said, putting his foot into Bertie’s back and using his full weight to make sure that the bunny was dead. He started to make a swinging motion, pulling the ends back and forth. “Just making sure.”

The thin metal wire cut in deep and the white fur around Bertie’s neck started to turn pink. Benny let one end go and made a quick knot, yanking hard to make sure the air would remain cut off and left Bertie in place. He then pulled out a pair of small wire cutters and snipped the ends away, so as to take the wooden dowels he used for handles with him.

“Been wanting an excuse to kill this bastard for years.” Benny said. “Damn Vichy collaborator gets to come over here and kill our people.”

“Yeah.” The squirrel nodded. “They killed Petey.”

“I know.”

“Can’t let Big Tony get away with that.” He reached into Wally’s coat and extracted the hand gun, checking the shells and replacing the one fired round with a fresh shell he found in Wally’s pocket.

“You could you know.” Benny said. “Just let it end with these guys.”

“Can’t Benny.” He said. “So long as weasels and Vichy scum can come over here, like the war never happened, and kill decent forest folk like that.”

“You think you can make Big Tony pay?”

“Sure.” He said.

“Good luck brother.”

He left Benny, and started his way to Big Tony’s. It was surprisingly close, even though Benny’s place was no dive, it was not in the better part of the forest. One would think that Big Tony could afford to live somewhere else. He slid the revolver into his pocket and went looking for him.

It wasn’t hard to get into the night club, wasn’t hard to get to Big Tony. The whole thing seemed just a little too easy, but he didn’t let that bother him. There were small red squirrels dancing on the stage, wearing far less than the Morality Board would allow if their influence could ever penetrate this sort of place. He saw Ruby, waiting the tables, as he walked in. Better not to let on he knew her though, better not to get her involved.

“Hello Tony.” He said standing across from the massive fat raccoon as he approached the table.

“You can’t talk to Big Tony.” A goonish looking stoat said grabbing his arm.

“Tell your stoat to take his hands off me, or I’ll make him eat them.” he said, smiling at the large crime boss.

“HA!” Big Tony announced. “I like that, have a seat.”

“I only came to find something out.” He said, sitting down and letting his hand drift into his pocket. “Did you send Wally and Bertie to get Petey tonight?”

“I want to have a talk with Petey.” Big Tony said. “Some friends of his have gotten themselves into some trouble with me and I want to know if he was involved.”

“Like robbing somebody and setting him on fire trouble?” he asked.

“Was it you?” Big Tony asked, merely curious.

“Damn right it was.” He said, pulling out the revolver and pointing it at the middle of Big Tony’s mass. “And why do you say talk when Bertie and Wally killed the poor possum?”

The music had died, everyone was watching the squirrel pointing his gun at the raccoon. The entire room held its breath, waiting for the next thing to come.

“All I wanted was to talk to him.” Big Tony said. “Wally called me and said Bertie got out of hand. What he did to Petey was mercy.”

“Mercy?” the squirrel asked, and fired four times into the big fat raccoon.

He then turned and fired into the skull of the stoat sitting next to him, but another gunner fired and he felt knocked off his feet. He fell to the floor, but managed to turn around and shoot the second stoat off balance. He got to his feet, grabbing a gun from one of the fallen and put to more rounds into the second stoat’s head. He started to stumble out of the club and without realizing she was there, found himself leaning on Ruby.

“You shouldn’t be here.” He told her as they stumbled out into the night. “Go home, spend all the acorns, buy a place in the city.”

“You just hush now.” She said as she tried to move him along, but the weight was too much for her.

He fell down, under the glow of a solitary street lamp. She cradled his head as he lay, gasping and trying to remember what you were supposed to do if you got shot. He couldn’t remember, bleed out seemed like the obvious answer. There seemed to be sirens, but they were far off in the distance.

He could have sworn he heard Billy’s voice, asking what happened, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Nothing matters, just let it go. All the pain is over, all the struggle is gone. Ruby will be fine, she’s a rich squirrel now. She won’t even be able to enter her tree for all the nuts stuffed in there, she and just leave for the city tonight and find a nice safe place. He could feel a comforting coldness, and there was some kind of music, and a warm dark coming in. He closed his eyes, and embraced the darkness.

“So it’s over.” Owl said. “Big Tony is gone, and the whole thing is wound up in a nice little package.”

“It’s not.” Billy said. “There’s all the nuts that Ruby had, there was some situation that the group was in dutch with Tony about.”

“She just happened to get them.” Owl said, while stuffing his pipe. “Who cares how? If we find out those were Chopper’s nuts, what good does it take to give them back? Let this one close, and let nice people get away to the city.”

“But…” Billy said. “The Law.”

“The law is an ass.” Owl said, lighting a match. “Listen, take your retirement. I’ll shuffle the books a little, make it that your time is up. I think this forest has gotten to you. You deserve time away. Take it.”

Billy left Owl’s office, left the tree, and thought about just leaving the forest entirely. He felt like a fraud, like a shadow puppet of a police officer. There was no law, no order, just a level of corruption that some animals felt comfortable with. The corruption was so endemic, that it was just a question of who was it corrupt for?

Billy took Owl up on the offer, taking his retirement soon after that. He left the forest and soon got a nice place in the city. It even had a pond, where he could go fishing on occasion.

Some time later, he happened to look Ruby up and went to have a look at her. She was living in a swanky hi-rise, with her daughter, a young red and gray squirrel. He didn’t talk to her, just had a look and left. They looked happy and he had no reason to interfere.

Baby’s First Noir Part 8

Baby’s First Noir
Part 8

When the sun came up, it was on a forest that was different than the one that it had seen when it went down. For one, it had gone down with Reddy the Rat all snuggled up in bed, and when it came up, he was tired to a sunflower’s thick stem. He’d been there most of the night, while his captor took most of his personal stash away. It was more than his cut of the squirrel’s stash, more than they’d originally taken from him in fact. By this point though, the squirrel had decided on a new plan. It was hours before he came back with the shillelagh that Reddy had brought with him from Ireland. After that, he’d just paced back and forth, as if trying to decide what to do with him.

“I can see you’re angry.” Reddy said for the fifteenth time. “I understand that, but look, it was just a job for hire. Chirpy and Chopper took it too far, that can’t be denied, but I was just along for the acorns.”

“Uh huh.” The squirrel said, walking back and forth, waving the cudgel.

“Smacking my head in with that shillelagh isn’t going to fix anything.” Reddy said, for only the eighth time.

“Uh-huh.” The squirrel said for the fifty-third time.

“I’m just making the point boy-o.” Third time.

“Yeah.” The squirrel said, for a change of pace.

He looked at the cudgel in his hand. He’d be damned if he’d use the name Reddy used. It was mostly a walking stick, but it had a large round knob of a handle that could be used as a club to kill an animal if needs be.

“Won’t you talk to me?” Reddy demanded.

“You know how cold kerosene is when it soaks into your fur Reddy?” He asked suddenly loquacious. “And you know it’ll be so damn hot when it lights. And you stood there and handed Chirpy your lighter.”

“Not me, me boy-o.” Reddy demanded.

“Yes.” He said, and swung the stick.

Reddy’s head snapped hard to the left, and as he lifted his head to look, another blow smashed against his head again. And then another, followed by another. That fourth blow was all that Reddy was aware of, but the blows continued until the stick broke. As that point, the squirrel picked up the end of the stick and finding it had a sharp point, rammed it into Reddy’s neck.

Blood only gushed a little, which meant that Reddy was probably already dead when the stab was made, but he had to be sure. He went down to the river and washed himself off, as he did every time, making a little ritual out of it. He cleaned his fur carefully, wiping his face and paws off, then he dipped into the river and shook around in it before getting out and shaking himself off vigorously.

He wasn’t sure about going back to Ruby’s at first, because she didn’t like this, but it was cold and he needed warmth. He was also afraid of Billy watching her place. Billy might talk about the one day when they’d take care of Big Tony, but that was just the one day that’d never come and they both knew it. He decided to risk going to Ruby’s though.

She wasn’t home when he got there though. She was still at work and as such, wasn’t able to see the huge pile of nuts he’d procured. He laid down on part of the pile and after such a hard night went to sleep.

----

Billy the Badger sat in Ollie the Owl’s office, looking at his superior. Chief Owl was probably the wisest and most sensible animal in the entire forest, so Billy always came to see him when he we troubled. Ollie was so revered, almost everyone simply called him Owl.

“Tell me the problem.” Owl said, stuffing his pipe carefully.

“There’s an old friend of mine.” Billy said, feeling small under Owl’s gaze. Owl was probably the only animal in the forest that could make Billy feel small.

“The squirrel?” Owl asked. “His name was…”

“Yeah.” Billy said. “Chopper’s crowd beat him up, stole his acorns, tried to burn him alive.

“And we know this because of the reports he filed?” Owl asked, striking a match and lowering it towards the bowl.

“No sir.”

“Would this be why Choppatansky and Chippering were all killed by someone while Chintzertella was killed by someone else?” Owl asked simply, managing to keep accusation out of his voice. “Because of their attempt to kill your friend?”

“You could say that.” Billy nodded, noticing that he was knotting his hands in his lap and trying to force himself to stop.

“Well, we know that Bit Tony had Bertie kill young Chintzertella.” Owl said, leaning back and drawing on his pipe. “So it could be that he heard about how the situation got out of control and took corrective action.”

“No sir.” Billy said shaking his head.

“Really?” Owl asked, setting his pipe down on the pipe stand at his elbow.

“My friend the squirrel killed the two of them.” Billy said. “But we fought in the war together Ollie.”

“Ah.” Owl said, nodding his head and picking the pipe back up. “Do you know how many crimes are committed in this forest everyday?”

“Sir?” Billy asked.

“One hundred and forty-two reported crimes. Everyday William. Most of them are tiny things. Traffic citations and so forth. Less than a third are actually serious, and even them fully a half of those are somewhat petty. Is a mouse stealing some bread to feed his family really committing a crime?”

“Yes.” Billy said.

“Maybe, but then there are those that fall into that sliver.” Owl formed his wings to show a small wedge. “That’s where violent crime exists. And you see, Billy, even there we have poor souls who have just made a mistake. Someone comes home early and finds their wife in bed with their best friend, or are driving too fast, or driving drunk, these things can happen. But in that sliver is a smaller sliver, where the repeat offenders live. Choppatansky and his bunch. They hurt people over and over again, for fun and profit. They are not civilized animals, not like you or me.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Billy asked.

“That the forest is better without that sort.” Owl said. “And if your friend is doing what comes naturally to him, then it saves us the trouble of getting that sort.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” Billy said.

“Crime is a plague on this city William.” Owl stated. “It has to be stopped by every mean. We’re not able to live valiantly, we can’t fight the good fight, we can only hope to keep the top of the pot from popping off and exploding. If something like this happens, and it scares a few of the local punks, all the better. It’s a filthy old forest William, and we can’t keep our hands clean even if we try. So why try? Every tool at our disposal William, every tool.”

“He’s got no back up.” Billy said.

At that moment the phone rang, and Owl reached over to answer it.

“Yes? Yes, he’s here.” He held the phone out to Billy.

“Hello?” Billy asked.

“It’s Stout, Billy.”

“Yes Captain?”

“We found Reddy.” He said simply. “You think we should put some protection on Petey?”

“Yes.” Billy said. “I’ll be there in a little while.”

“Well?” Owl asked, sucking on his pipe.

“Someone killed Reddy the Rat.” Billy said.

“Marvelous.” Owl nodded, “Then it’s all done.”

“I only wish it was.” Billy said, getting up.