Brush Creek Charlie by D. B. Reynolds (best free e book reader .TXT) 📕

CHAPTER—1

Skies painted with powdery gray clouds and a half-bright moon were projected over the calm creek waters and mud dried concrete of Brush Creek. Charles “Charlie The Machete” Rastelli casted a pair of evil eyes over towards what appeared to be his next easy target. The shell-shocked Vietnam veteran possessed a powerful build, heavily-scarred face, and cauliflower ears. A rather large plastic bag bulged from the left side of his belly. Considered a curse by most, he’d been confined to wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of his life. A tragic war wound explained everything in detail.
The creepy looking war veteran watched every move the young beauty made. She strolled along the concrete walkway with her large black Labrador Retriever by her side. Charles Rastelli had total mischief on the brain. Now came the time for him to make his move. Gently, he lifted an empty whiskey bottle from the ground. He held it with a firm grip. He watched her with eyes of absolute contempt. Birds chirped sounds of warning from the trees above.
Squirrels and rabbits trampled through the tall grasses surrounding the creek.
“Evening, ma’am,” Charles spoke, a strong voice tainted with suspicion.
Caught by surprise, she jerked her head backwards. She stared him up and down and then said, “Evening to you, sir.”
“Come to Brush Creek often?” Charles asked, his jumpy eyes coated with plot.
“Just to walk my dog and get some fresh air. And how about yourself?”
“Brush Creek is like my inner sanctum,” Charles hinted. “There’s never been a more exciting place on Earth.”
“Is that right? Sounds like Brush Creek fascinates you.”
“Used to come here every single day when I was a kid.”
“Guess it’s not a bad place to hang out. It’s nice to get away from the madness of the city.”
A familiar growl rumbled from the stomach of her Labrador. The growl sent warning vibes to its master. The dog sensed something she couldn’t.
“So, what’s your name?”
“My name’s Sandy. Sandy Barnholtz, to be exact.”
“And Barnholtz’s Jewish I assume?”
“It is. And your name?”
“Charles, but all of my family and friends call me Charlie. I’m a Vietnam War Vet.”
“Charlie, huh?”
“Yeah, like Charlie Chaplin, Charlie McCarthy, Charlie Bronson, and Charlie’s Angels,” Charlie marveled, followed by a gritty snicker.
Once again, the Labrador growled.
The growls grew more intense.
Sandy not only noticed the large bulge from the side of Charlie’s stomach, but she also noticed his left hand dangling to the side of his leg and behind his back.
She backed away from him. It might’ve been too late to prepare for danger.
“Hey, what’ve you got in your hand?” Sandy jolted, slowly backing away.
“Didn’t you notice when I first walked up on you?” Charlie smirked, playing mind games to the fullest.
“You’re one of those psychos.”
“How’d you guess?”
Sandy used lightning quick reflexes. She dropped the lease to the ground.
“Get him Bolo!” she ordered, her Labrador ready to attack on command.
Bolo, the vicious canine, rushed Charlie with a set of razor sharp teeth. Charlie had served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He’d never been shy about showing off his special combat tactics. He welcomed the attack with an open challenge. Bolo maneuvered quick enough to sink his inviting teeth into the flesh of Charlie’s right arm.
“You stupid fucking mutt!” Charlie muzzled, a maniac who laughed at pain.
Sandy stood aside with hopes her canine would rip Charlie into bite-size morsels.
“Kill him, Bolo! Kill the bastard!”
Charlie broke the empty whiskey bottle using his free left hand. His special tactics training on how to kill his enemies with impunity were now put to the test. Brute strength and outright insanity proved a worthy adversary. Charlie jabbed the fierce Labrador through the abdomen with the sharp edge of the bottle. Blood gushed out of Bolo like a tiny water fountain.
“My God!” Sandy screamed, her eyes bewildered in disbelief.
“God can’t save this stupid mutt!” Charlie replied, blood oozing down the side of his arm.
“You killed my precious Bolo!”
Bolo squealed from the sounds of a canine meeting up with its demise. Charlie jabbed and jabbed deeper into the dog’s abdomen. More blood painted the mud baked concrete walkway of Brush Creek. So what Charlie suffered serious bite marks into his right arm. So what most of the bite marks penetrated several layers of his thick skin. Sandy stood before an insensitive maniac to say the least.
“You sick sonofabitch!” Sandy grumbled through clenched teeth. Tears welled heavily in her eyes.
“As sick as you want me to be.”
“My Bolo’s dead because of you.”
Charlie dropped the sharp piece of glass to the ground. The darkest blood ever trickled down his arm. Having gotten himself all bloodied up was his badge of honor. Mentally, no man could’ve been sicker. Sandy could’ve easily ran for her life. Instead, she decided to stick around and watch the psychotic bastard brutally kill her dog. She loved Bolo more than anyone knew.
“Now the world’s free from one less mutt,” Charlie boasted in his own perverted way.
Sandy twisted muscles in her face and said, “You’re going to pay for what you did to my precious Bolo.”
Charlie fired back with his ugly, war-scarred face. “If anybody’s going to pay, bitch, it’s going to be you.”
“How could you do such a thing, you sonofabitch? Where’d you learn to be so cruel to animals?”
“For your information, I served time in Nam.”
“Nam?”
“Vietnam, you incompetent broad,” Charlie clarified, his voice revved with vengeance. “I killed little innocent babies, innocent children, and innocent women.”
“Which makes you a cold-blooded killer.”
“That’s right, the United States Government had me over there in Nam killing people who ain’t never done nothing to me.”
“My lord, you’re a real sicko.”
“Wanna know what else?”
“Huh?”
Sandy shivered as she stared down at her beloved dog who laid in his own pool of blood.
“My grandfather, they killed him in the gas chamber back in the early forties. Government claimed he had something to do with the Union Station Massacre.”
“Look, I don’t give a damn about your grandfather.”
“And I’ll tell you another thing. I lost something real precious when I served over in Nam. I lost something that stopped me from carrying on my name, something that ended my goddamn family legacy.”
Sandy leveled her head downward to stare between the legs of Charlie. Right at his midsection, a noticeable flatness struck her curiosity. Prints usually made from men’s sex organs weren’t there. She shook her head and backed away.
“I lost the very thing that would’ve carried on the family name for generations to come.”
“You lost-----?” Sandy stuttered, zooming in closer to his midsection.
“Yes, bitch, my dick and balls were shot off in combat!”
Charlie slipped into a deep daze and traveled back into time. The place was west of Saigon along the Cambodian border.
The 25th Infantry Division held their M-60 machine guns as a mother would’ve held her newborn child. Operation Saratoga rushed through the hot sweaty jungles of Vietnam avoiding sniper fire received about five miles northeast of Cu Chi, Vietnam. Charlie and fellow troops were on a combat reconnaissance mission. The soldiers crouched down as they moved through low foliage in the demilitarized zone. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed all around their faces. The stench of decomposed bodies sifted through the air.
Charlie and fellow trooper’s faces were camouflaged with colored grease paint. They waited patiently for any sign of enemy activity during a search and destroy operation in one of Mekong Delta’s swamp jungles. Green Berets waged guerilla warfare and organized resistance behind enemy lines. Vietnamese Militias snuck up on American soldiers and fired away with their belt-faced machine guns.
Six-hundred rounds per minute were shot at Charlie and his guys at a range no closer than 900 meters. To avoid being hit, Charlie dove into a deep trench. He landed right onto a dead American solider whose body was being devoured by thousands of hungry maggots. The corpse didn’t even have a face. The consumptive maggots had eaten all the way down to the facial skeleton.
The horrific sight traumatized Charlie to the degree of him jumping out of the trench and right into the line of fire. A cluster of M-60 rounds made contact with his midsection. His penis and scrotum were blasted right off his body. Blood soaked his Army fatigues.
“I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!” Charlie cried out twice to any who’d listen.
A fellow trooper from Operation Saratoga quickly came to his rescue. “Charlie, where’d you get hit?”
“Between my legs!” Charlie yelled in excruciating pain.
“We’ve got to get you medical help.”
“I think I got hit in my family jewels.”
“The Viet Congs are doubled up in this fucking jungle.”
“Goddamn chinks!” Charlie fizzled. “Betcha they’re looking to take pow’s.”
Charlie’s fellow trooper got on his walkie talkie and radioed for help. “We’ve got a soldier down. Repeat, we’ve got a soldier wounded. Casualties from Saratoga are with him until he gets medical help.”
“We read you, soldier,” answered a medical staff member.
Army Corps medical staff arrived to attend to a wounded Charlie. Medical technicians rolled him over onto a gurney and rushed him to a