The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy) (17 page)

"Liked it better when I felt like
hammered shit,"
he
thought to himself as he cleaned the grill, trying to scrub away the memories
of last night as he scrapped the old grease from the hot surface of the burner.
"She wanted me to stop kicking him because she still likes him,"
he told himself throwing a brillo pad on the grill and then pressing down on it
with a flat piece of metal that had a handle. Pressing hard, he started
scrubbing away all the grease and fat from the slick metal surface of the
grill. Hot grease spit up from the hot surface, burning his face and arms with
tiny, sizzling drops. The pain didn't do anything but make him scrub harder,
which in turn caused more burning grease rain.

He let out a low, quiet, growl which Joe
heard as he walked past.

"Shift's over," Joe patted Drew on
the shoulder. "Get outta here."

Pulling the grill scrubber off the grill and
throwing it onto the grease ledge, Drew walked back to the time clock without a
word, punching out and walking out the back door.

With the lunch hour rush over at two o'clock,
Jenny came back to clock out as well.

Joe heard her coming as he sat in the back
office, doing paperwork. "What's wrong with Drew?" he asked his
niece.

"Dunno," she lied, clocking out.

"He dared me to fire him today."

That got Jenny's attention. "What?"
she walked back into Joe's office. "No way!" Drew was her favorite
person to work with. He always made her laugh, whether he meant to or not,
which was the best thing about him.

Joe looked up from his papers. "He
refused to do what I told him to do, and when I confronted him on his
insubordination, he told me to fire his ass."

"But you didn't, right?"

"Hell no, he's the only male employee
I've got that is worth a damn, but he is definitely on my shit list now."

Nodding her head, she walked out of his
office, grabbing her keys off the break table.

"Why don't you give that boy a
chance?"

Jenny looked back at her uncle with a shrug.
"We're friends."

Joe leaned back in his chair, looking at his
niece. "He's a good kid, unlike those hoods he hangs out with. You would
be doing yourself a favor as well as him if the two of you got together. He
would treat you like a queen."

She looked away from him with a light sigh,
knowing what he said was completely true, but in all honesty she just wasn't
willing to settle for a nice guy.

He seemed to read her mind. "Nice guys
finish last, right? How many bad boys do you think are worth having around when
it's time to start a family or buy a house? I'd bet fifty bucks that five years
from now, Johnny will be bald, have a gut twice as big as Drew's, and be
unemployed. How do you think Drew will be doing?"

She nodded her head, scrambling for the back
door, knowing full well that Drew was a straight A student, even though he
worked thirty plus hours a week. Pushing it open, she had just enough time to
see the tail end of Drew's car as it pulled past the diner and onto the highway.

She let out a ragged sigh of relief as his
car disappeared from sight.
"What the hell would you have said to him,
anyway?"
She asked herself. Thoughts swirled in her mind about the
good things about Drew and the bad things about Johnny. Walking towards her
car, she let out a low growl at the simple truth of the bad of Johnny just
tasted sweeter than the good of Drew, which was just stupid.

The drawl of the bad boy can be hard to
escape for some girls, but Jenny was doing her best to leave behind the addiction.

Drew went home, took a shower and tried to
relax and watch a little T.V. but all he could think about was Jenny having the
hot's for Johnny.

"Bullshit," he said aloud. "If
she is that stupid, she's not worth the trouble." Pulling out his cell phone,
he texted his best friend.

Jake's phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling it
out he saw the text message:
Bored. Let's get together and get stoned/drunk.

Letting out a quiet sigh, he rubbed his eyes.
All he really wanted to do was go back to sleep as soon as they got out of this
hell hole.

Still at mom's treatment.
Jake texted back.
Gotta go home and crash
for a couple of hours. Let you know when I'm up and we'll hook up then.

Pussy
was Drew's one word reply.

Jake let out a sigh of annoyance, just as his
phone rang. He answered it, not even looking at the number, guessing it was
Drew.

"Yeah?"

"You're an asshole," it was
Johnny's voice.

"If I am, I can't even imagine what that
makes you."

A slightly nervous cackle assaulted Jake's
eardrum for a second before Johnny found his voice. "I'm ready to party.
Come and pick me up at my house."

"Man, don't you guys ever sleep?"

"I'll get enough sleep when I'm dead,
now come and get me!"

"I'm still at the doctor's with mom, so
meet me at the park."

"I've walked enough for one lifetime,
shit-head. I'm not walking another mile to the damn park just to meet your
sorry ass."

"Fine, then stay home and do nothing,
that would make my life easier."

"C'mon man, just come and get me!"

"Nope," Jake replied, mainly to be
a pain in Johnny's ass. "You either meet me at the park or you'll miss the
joyride," he killed the call with a press of a button and then started
texting Drew.

Park in 40 min.

He shut his phone off, done with both of
them. He had no intention of going to the park. As soon as they left this hell
hole he was taking his mom home and crashing for the next several hours. His
brain wasn't firing on all cylinders at the moment, between the hangover, lack
of sleep, and the deterioration of his mom as well as the bizarre conversation
with Linda the last thing on his mind was the conflict between Drew and Johnny.
By no means had he intentionally set the two up to cross paths without him
present to referee, at least not consciously. The sub-conscious, on the other
hand, is an entirely different animal.

Jack tipped the worn bill of his dirty
ball-cap down, trying to hide his eyes from the sun. "So what's your
interest in the young punks anyway? I can't see them being much use at
anything. The only thing they know how to do is party."

"Intoxication usually softens the clay
of the human soul," the fiend lifted up his hands, flexing his fingers as
if he was kneading something. "Makes you mortals much more
malleable."

Pride was one of the few sins that had dried
up and drifted away in the vassal known as Jack Rat. The only remnants left of
this dark emotion involved his prowess as a warrior. Even in his elder years,
he still viewed himself as dangerous in body and strong in will. To be
insinuated that he was a puppet to anyone or anything stirred up anger in his
old, dried up alcy bones.

Their eyes met and held, rage was obvious in
Jack's; chilly amusement in the demons. The slight smile on the fiend slowly
faded as the staring contest continued in heavy silence.

"Give me the blade," the monster
commanded. The amusement was gone from its look, just the ice remained.

"Why?" Jack asked through clenched
teeth.

"Cause I've let you hold on to it long
enough, I need it back now."

"I found that knife in Nam, before I met
you. It's mine."

"The moment you found that switchblade,
you found me and you know it. That blade is not just mine, it's a part of me.
You think you're the first person to ever use it?"

Jack looked down at the weapon, knowing that
someone had stuck it in a dead gook's throat, which was where he had found it.
But he had never thought anything else about it. Why would someone have just
left such a sweet blade sticking in a dead Cong's neck instead of taking it
with?

"Cause he didn't have the strength to
carry such a powerful weapon," the demon answered. "So he left it
like the coward he was. Good thing you came along and picked up the
slack."

The fiend let out a sigh. "That boy has
been such a disappointment in so many ways in his lifetime. You know his daddy
had carried that knife before him. I let him find it in Germany back in WW2.
Now that man knew how to carve up flesh," it glanced at Jacky, "Not
quite as good as you, but he did that death tool justice. It only made sense to
pass it on to his boy when he went off to Nam. It was going to be a new family
tradition," the monster chuckled for a moment but it quickly turned to a
sigh. "Course he blew that one, just like all the other opportunities I
gave him."

Jack's eyes squinted up. "Who had this
knife before me?"

The demon's eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Hadn't you figured that out by now? Frank stabbed that gook about four
hours before you found the knife. That weapon pretty much went straight from
his hand to yours, via one dead Cong anyway."

"So I'm one step away from being like
Frank in your eyes?"

"Of course not," the demon replied.
"You've never let me down, you've never gone pussy on me. You're my
man!"

"I'm your tool, same as the knife."

Jack pulled the switchblade from the back
pocket of his faded and worn out jeans. His thumb rubbing back and forth on the
ebony hilt, sliding the safety off almost coincidently. Almost.

"Go ahead," the demon said, reading
his mind. "What do you need me for anyway? Our history, our loyalty to one
another, our time together in the tunnels, that don't mean shit, right?" A
little bit of red flashed behind its cold eyes.

"Right," Jack agreed. "Don't
mean shit." The blade snapped open, the tip pointing at the fiend.
"Cause you ain't nothin' but a pimp and I'm your twenty dollar
whore."

The fiend's teeth were quite sharp as he
smiled. "Twenty bucks? I didn't know you felt so highly of yourself."

And with that, the battle was on. Jack went
full on at the demon, slicing a thin ribbon of blood on the fiend's face as he wove
his knife around like a Shaolin monk. The demon replied with a roar that
sounded like something that would come from a diseased lion as talons suddenly
appeared from the tips of its fingers. Bringing its claws toward Jack's ribs,
it unlocked its jaw and shot forward at the mortal's neck.

Jack stabbed the monster's left wrist,
stopping it cold. He grabbed the wrist of the demon's right hand, pushing back,
trying to escape the beast's jaws. The beast followed after him as he rolled
backwards, trailing his jugular.

Their eyes met for a brief moment on that
painful morning and the demon was truly impressed with Jack, for there was no
fear in the orbs of his soul, only the fight.

"Only mortals can be this good as
suicide soldiers,"
the
hell monster thought to itself as it let Jack escape its jaws, pushing it off
with a cheap ass judo roll.
"Time well spent with this one."

It let the momentum carry it into the wall of
the trailer, allowing the collision to look more forceful than it really was,
in hopes of boosting Jack's morale even more. With a low growl, the demon looked
back at Jack, holding its wounded wrist, making the damage seem more severe.
"So what now, tough guy? You got the balls to end this or what?"

"Why not?" Jack stepped forward,
knife first. "It's not like we're buddies."

"No we're not buds," dark blood
seeped out of the corner of its mouth as it slowly slid down to the ground.
"We're partners, working together to do the best we can in a shit
world."

The knife was right in the demon's face.
"No, you have always thought you were the one in charge, always treating
me like your fucking lackey."

"We're all fucking lackeys! I'm no
different than you on that. Do you think I make up all the rules? Do you think
I'm the one that makes shit this way?" It pointed to the trailer out in the
middle of nowhere. "Do you think I wanted you out here in your shitty
fortress of solitude drinking yourself to death?" A lone blood-tainted
tear fell from one of the beast's eyes, which in truth made a crocodile's tear
sincere. "I'm no different than you, which is why we gotta stick
together."

The knife drifted back from the fiend's face
as Jack looked him in the eye for a long moment. "It's hard to be
somebody's bitch, you know?"

"Nobody knows that better than us, my
man."

Jack closed up the knife and handed it over.

"Thanks," the fiend replied.
"Like
taking candy from a baby,"
the monster thought to itself, knowing full
well it hadn't been that easy; it was just trying to reassure itself that the
situation hadn't really almost gotten out of its control. Demons lie to
everyone else, why not themselves?