Out of Time by Ryan Matthew Harker (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

“Sometimes it ain't about the dough, Jones.”

I've dealt with his type before though. He may be at the top of his food chain but I'm the well placed bullet that'll take him down, dense and chock full of kinetic energy. “Come on, DMT, you know my story. I didn't leave you with the Clucks because I wanted to. I had no choice. Adoc was hot on my six.”

“So says you!” He aims an accusatory finger at me. “Them Clucks busted me up well good. I spent two years rotting in their can afore me fellows got up the strength ta bust me out!”

“What happened?” Sammi's quiet compassion speaks loudly aboce the din of DMT's dissenting 'fellows'. “What, or who, are the Clucks. What did Davey do?”

“Them Clucks,” DMT pauses to spit over the side of his recliner. His goons follow suit, spackling the grime encrusted concrete with their thick saliva. I add my own loogey to the bunch to show my support. “Are a bunch of low down, dirty animals. They got no love nor sympathy for none, not even each other. They dung, stinkin' an' rottin'!”

“Oh-kay.” Sammi looks to me for further elucidation.

“the Coo Coo Chickens, also known as Crazy Chicks, the Coo Coos, and Clucks. They're one of three major gangs controlling what's left of the city. Besides them, and DMT's Dum Deedle Dums here, there's also the Rikers...”

“Nope!” DMT interrupts. “Them Rikers ain't no more. Clucks done blowed 'em up six months ago, took in most a the remains, though we got some too.”

I hear angry Dum Dums cursing Coo Coos. Looking around I assume these to be some of the ex-Rikers.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I tell DMT and I truly am. “The Rikers weren't a bad lot.”

“Yeah” DMT sneers. “A lot's changed since you bailed!”

“I didn't bail on you!” I yell back. “The Clucks grabbed you, Adoc appeared, and I had to travel. I can't even begin to tell you the kind of crap I've been through since. Believe me, I've carried the guilt of leaving you. I couldn't count the times I wanted to get back and fix it! You're my friend, DMT. I hated leaving you like that!”

DMT escapes the recliner's broken embrace, and standing his full six foot four inches his eyes turn to slits of hatred. “Some friend! You musta wanted ta come back right bad. See ya made it no prob' once ya needed somethin' from ol' DMT.”

I lunge forward, hands balling into fists, ready to do my best to wipe that smug look off DMT's ugly mug. Fortunately, probably for me as well as him, Sammi lays a light, but restraining, hand on my arm.

“Boys!” Her soft, dulcet tone carries authority as she steps between us. “Please, all this macho B.S. Isn't going to get us anywhere!”

DMT cracks the knuckles of both hands and steps forward, “Maybe not, missy, but it shore ta make me feel better.”

I take off my trench coat, now dirty, stained, and tattered by traveling through a multitude of time periods. “If that's the way you want to play this, DMT,” I unbuckle my shoulder holster and hand it with the Colt over to Sammi, along with the AR. “Then I'm game.”

“Davey,” Sammi's eyes are wide as she accepts my weapons. “I don't know about this.”

The Dum Dums start stoking the fires higher.

“Don't worry,” I wink at her. “If the only way I can get this joker any sense is to beat it into him, then so be it.” I take her face in my hands and kiss her tenderly.

I turn back to face DMT, “All, right, DMT, bring it...” and walk right into his fist.

The filthy S.O.B never did fight fair!

On my feet one moment, on my hands and knees the next. I'll say this, the man packs quite a wallop. I grab my chin as the stars behind my eyelids fade to flashes fade to dots. The Dum Dums howl their approval of their leaders low down tactics and I sense DMT coming in for another blow, this time a kick to my midsection. On my knees I twist and catch his leg as it flies towards me. Pushing up from the debris littering the battlefield, I heave DMT off his feet and into a raggedy, tetanus infested pile of it.

“Yay, Davey!” Sammi yells happily while the Dum Dums howls turn to dismay. Me? I just take the moment earned to regain the rest of my bearings.

“Jones!” DMT roars as we square off.

“DMT!” I roar back and we close on each other.

I land a right cross, it does little to faze the bigger man. He returns with one, two, three solid body shots into my left ribcage. Oh yeah, that's going to hurt later. I dance away, throwing a kick to DMT's knee as I do. He easily avoids that one and knowing he's knocked the air from me moves in, hoping to press his advantage.

I need to do something to stack the odds, if not in my favor, then at least even them up a little. And I see just the thing.

Hitching my chest like I'm still trying to catch my breath, and I'm faking of course, I draw DMT in like any ol' suicidal moth to a flame. I let him land another blow to my head, but seeing as how I know it's coming, don't let the full force of it land. By the way the Dum Dums start wailing it seems they think it did. That's good because that means DMT probably does too.

Sammi cries out, “OH no!” which can't do nothing to hurt my cause. I should have been an actor.

I go down. Pretending to be a little extra dizzy, I wrap a hand around a two foot chunk of rusty steel pipe protruding from the rubble. Dum Dums try to bring the roof down, what's left of it, yelling their support. Out of the corner of my eye DMT's raising his arms in presumptuous victory. Like a stalking leopard I stay down, clutching the pipe tightly, patiently waiting.

Mostly patient anyways. “UUNNGH,” I groan for dramatic effect. No one hears me over the din. “UUNNGH!” I groan even louder. This time I'm putting in enough umph the crowd doesn't drown me out.

DMT lowers his arms and turns my way. Bingo!

“Ha ha ha! Had enough, Jones?” He strides towards me, near wading through a pool of garbage.

Almost, almost. Come on, just a little closer. “Uunngh,” I groan one last time.

“Jones?”

Is that a hint of concern I hear big, bad gang lord DMT? I almost feel a little guilty about what's coming next. Nah, screw your concern.

DMT leans in and... WHAM! I cream him upside the head with the rusty steel pipe. For just one moment there's not a stick of sound outside the crackle of the fires, then, “Oooooo!” the collective ouch from the peanut gallery. DMT manages to stay upright. I cock my arm back, ready to lay into him again if necessary. It's not. His eyes roll into the back of his head. He deflates, first to his knees, then continuing forward to his face.

I drop the pipe.

About ten minutes later DMT's sitting up, hand to the side of his head, gently massaging a newly tenanted goose egg.”You ain't neva played fair, Jones,” he grin's full of snaggle teeth. “I always liked that about you.”

“Funny.” I offer him a hand up. “ I was thinking the same thing about you, the playing fair part. I never really liked you.”

Laughing DMT takes my hand and I haul his large carcass to its feet. “It was a good fight, Jones. I was a good fight.”

I keep his hand in mine and cover it with my other. “look DMT, you're the closest thing to a brother I've ever had. You have to know I didn't sell you out to the Clucks, I would never do that. I didn't bail on you because I wanted to. I had no choice. You have to believe me.”

“Hm,” DMT looks a little embarrassed shaking free of my hands. “So you need a ship?”

Despite the squalor a person might live in, most people have at least one room which defines their character by being immaculate. It's almost as if all the dirt and all the filth they present the rest of the world is nothing but a front hiding their true lively dispositions from their social peers. For example, the bathroom of my laboratory apartment is absolutely spotless, while the rest of the place looks like its praying the CDA give them a clean review while waiting for FEMA to clear the relief fund. The scale is most definitely much larger in the case of DMT and the Dum Deedle Dums. With their rundown, condemned warehouse domicile the circumstances creating the situation are the same, but the message is clear: no one wants to live in filth. Nope, it's just something that happens in the course of life.I mean, heck, come on, who has time to clean everything all the time. It's predictably inevitable the areas we spend the most time in are the dirtiest. Despite this, all of us, each and every one, has a sanctuary that's comfortable and clean.

Down some stairs and past one foot thick iron doors, under the dirt and the refuse of the half collapsed warehouse, is the true hideout of the Dum Deedle Dums, and boy is it spotless! If you didn't know any better you'd never know it's down here, and once you do it seems impossible it's part of the same building. This is about how Sammi felt.

“Whoa!” She's obviously impressed by the place. This underground sub-warehouse, buried under the ruins of the other, is opposite end of the spectrum clean compared to its above ground sister. Makes a person wonder who's doing the maintenance on the joint. From the looks of the tattooed, chain slung, leather and jean jacket wearing 1980's throwbacks living here I can't believe any one of them knows the working end of a broom from the other. It's got to be robots doing all the domestic work. What else could it be?

Sammi must be thinking the same thing. “Who cleans up after you?” She asks.

“Robots,” DMT saunters in proudly.

I knew it!

He's pleased as a pig in poop, self serving materialist that he is. Me, I've seen it all before, it's no great shakes. The one thing I'd find impressive is nowhere to been seen.

Beelining for a corner I assume there must be a pressure sensitive switch under his feet because at DMT's approach the floor opens and a well provisioned bar emerges from hiding.

Ok, now this place is impressive.

“So, where's the ship?”

“Patience, Davey, me brudda. All in good time,” he says as he slips behind the bar. “Somethin' you got in plenty.”

So now I'm his brother. That little knock to his head must've done the trick. However, I do like the way the man thinks, drinks before business is always preferable. I gladly approach the bar and decide upon closer examination it qualifies as VERY well provisioned indeed.

“Whiskey?” DMT's offer is only a platitude as the richly colored liquid is already tumbling into the tumblers which subsequently tumble into our hands.

“You know it.” My words tumble out just behind the whiskey and the tumbler's in my hand as I finish agreeing.

“For yo' lady?”

“The same,” Sammi bellies up to the bar. “Three fingers, straight up. Please.”

DMT laughs the drink into her possesion. “Please, huh? Don' hear language like 'at 'round 'bout no more,” he pours and shoots his own. “You IS some kinda lady.” He pours and shoots another.

Sip. Savor. Swallow. Ah, that's more my style. Damn fine whiskey to go down so smooth. I can definitely tell I haven't had such ambrosia in a few weeks, or a few million