Today's entry in the Works in Progress series is an excerpt from a longish story whose working title is
Bedlam's Bible.
The story features Shalimar Bang and her consulting organization of risk managers. Shalimar has already appeared in an eBook, "The Dream Stalker," which is available from both
Amazon and
Smashwords. A brief description of Shalimar's beginnings is provided in "The Dream Stalker," but
Bedlam's Bible includes more details about her background and her remarkable abilities.
Bedlam's Bible also offers a broader view of her organization than the previous eBook did. Shalimar may run the business, but she isn't the only extraordinary individual on its roster.
In fact, this excerpt focuses on one of those other characters, and Shalimar doesn't even appear.
Bomber Jacquet is new to readers, but he's been galloping around inside my skull for quite a while. I originally wrote him into a script for a comic book pitch, but then moved him into this prose narrative. On first appearance, he doesn't fit the classic heroic mold -- he's quirky, ungainly and apparently uncoordinated, and he definitely can't be categorized with the strong, silent, square-jawed type of fellow who usually may be found on paperback covers. I find him funny, endearing, and a joy to write.
I hope you enjoy reading about him as much as I like writing his adventures.
On to the excerpt:
Bedlam's Bible: Chapter One
FLAMF!
Bo Curlew
flinched and ducked his head as another 9mm bullet struck and dented the
stainless steel and spewed flame.
The
stainless steel sheathed a hot dog cart. His hot dog cart. And right now it
gave him cover from two crazy men shooting automatic pistols at him.
A career in
the Navy, years of taking part in covert ops as a SEAL, and now he was hunkered
on a sidewalk, smeared with mustard and pickle relish, pinned down by enemy
fire, and not a single weapon at hand.
How did he
get in this mess?
+
+ +
45 minutes ago . . .
Metropolis,
Illinois, lay on the Ohio River and moved about as slowly as those waters,
unless they were swollen by flood. And in the summer months, this town of a
little more than six thousand souls stirred itself into a tourist hot spot for
those needing a sign that truth, justice, and the American way still had a
place in the hearts and minds of their countrymen.
During the
course of a summer, hundreds of shutters would be tripped and thousands of
photos would be shot of people standing by and in front of a
larger-than-life-size statue of the world’s most famous red-caped superhero,
which stood in an eponymous square at the center of town.
And every
day of the summer months except Sundays, Bo Curlew wheeled his hot dog cart to
the northeast corner of the square and Market Street by 10:30 a.m. to set up in
time for the lunch-hungry tourists to catch the enticing aroma of hot wieners.
So there
was nothing unusual in Bo’s parking his cart at the corner that Tuesday
morning. There was a haze in the sky the Bo knew would build into darker clouds
during the day as the humidity rose in thickening waves from the river. There
would be rain tonight, but his business day should be fine, and he expected the
rain to be gone by the time he set up shop the following morning. He had just
set the lock on the wheels and taken a look at the new sign he had installed
across the front of the cart last night: Superdogs. The white of the sign’s
background was as crisp as Bo’s bleached apron and the starched diner hat on
his head. His short-sleeved shirt and trousers were the same blue as the famous
statue’s suit, and a ribbon along the seam of his trousers matched the red of
the statue’s cape. Retired from the military, Bo continued to present a sharp
figure.
He had
inserted the post of the cart’s large umbrella into its stand, but its canvas
wings were still folded, and Bo was just beginning to unlatch the hatch covers
that allowed access to the hot belly of the cart.
Then a
shadow dropped across the top of the cart.
Bo looked
up. The owner of the shadow said, “I’ll have a hot dog.”
Bo nodded.
“Hang on a minute, I’ll have it right up.” Bo didn’t move immediately to his
order, because he was still looking at his customer.
He was a
big one.
He was
tall—Bo pegged him at six-seven or six-eight, at least a foot over his head—and
an interesting-looking character. Interesting—in a town where balding and
bearded middle-aged men wearing comic book clothes drove up in RVs and Smart
Cars to take pictures and buy glow-in-the-dark posters of Linda Carter in a
pose from a 1970s TV show.
The man’s
height was emphasized by his long face, his long arms, and his long legs, and the
apparently narrow shoulders that didn’t seem to fit a body so big. His head was
sort of rectangular, and his hair was thin and buzzed closed to his scalp. He
wore thick-lensed glasses in horn rim frames, so the distortion caused by the
lenses made his eyes seem big, too. But if he turned his head, the pupils
disappeared. Bo felt a chill the first time he spotted that.
Bo started
building his customer’s hot dog, but continued to look over the fellow. “You
want just one?” Bo asked.
“Is that a
Big joke?” the man replied. “Just one. I like a
little conversation before I jump feet-first into the deep end of a
relationship.”
Bo
handed over his creation in exchange for a bill. “Keep the change.” Bo nodded
and lined up the catsup and mustard—both yellow and brown—at the edge of the
cart.
He
watched the man eat.
The lower
half of the rectangular head was rounded by a double
chin, and the chin itself was a knob that poked out from the soft roll of fat.
The fingers and hands holding the hot dog were long and muscular, and Bo’s
military training helped him estimate the rest of this man was probably
well-muscled, too, although he seemed to have a good start on a beer gut that
belled out the bottom of a black tee shirt with SKA printed in yellow across
the chest. Over the shirt he wore a leather, padded aviator’s jacket. He also
wore pleated trousers with a delicate black check woven into the material, and
the cuffs puddled a bit over black-and-tan spectators.
Some
old combat training stirred up a buzz behind Bo’s ears. His instincts told him
this guy was trouble.
He
asked, “How is it?”
“Pretty good. Mmm. If you’re – GULP – suggesting CHOMP my
size (MMMF) warrants MORE than (munch) one frank, I’d GULP agree. But CHOMP I
need (mmmffmm) to stay light (smack) on my feet for awhile. GULP.”
The
customer looked at his wrist watch. Its face was positioned on the inside of
his left wrist.
“By the way, you need to vacate this space in the next
seventy-two and a half minutes.”
“What?” The
cart vendor shook his tongs at this big galoot—sure, he looked goofy and was a
good tipper, but Bo was sure some sort of trouble was riding his narrow,
cow-hide padded shoulders—and sputtered with an uncharacteristic anger that
seemed to zoom up his backbone: “I’ve bought a permit
for this site! A clutch of hungry fanboy tourists and a gaggle of lawyers will
come streaming out onto this square like a buffalo stampede and wolf down a
cart full of dogs, all while chattering on cell phones, and not drop a single
crumb on their Armani or Kenneth Coles! That’s my living, buster!”
The tall
man licked his fingertips and tilted his head in what Bo supposed was a
sympathetic angle—Bo couldn’t see the man’s eyes, so he guessed at the
sympathy.
But engaged
in the hot dog harangue, neither man gave any attention to a 1953 Studebaker
roaring along Market toward the square until the car
came to a slewing, screeching halt by the curb behind the hot dog cart.
Bo
paused, tongs in mid-shake as he turned to look behind him.
A
Japanese man -- Bo judged him about 60 years old -- slammed open the passenger door
and jumped out of the Studebaker. Bo’s training cataloged the man’s details
immediately: he was wearing a tan jacket (with narrow lapels that reminded Bo
of suits from the early 1960s) over a collared shirt and a thin black necktie,
dark pants and wingtips. He was nearly bald, hair cut close to the head. He
wore black-frame glasses.
And
Bo’s less-exciting life as a street vendor hadn’t dimmed his peripheral vision:
He saw that his customer clearly recognized the man and was surprised to see
him.
The
man called out. Bo heard the Oriental accent as the man yelled, “Bomber!”
The
big galoot replied: “Rampo?”
Bo gripped
the tongs, automatically picking a target on the big man in the aviator’s
jacket. “He called you a bomber.”
The galoot
didn’t take his eyes off the man from the Studebaker. “Not a bomber. Bomber.”
The driver
also got out of the Studebaker. He was dressed all in black, also wore
black-framed glasses, and Bo registered the details that made him think the
driver was the other man’s son.
“Are you
some kind of terrorist?” Bo began shifting his stance, moving his grip on the
tongs so he could drive them into a vulnerable spot.
“Bomber’s
my name.” Except for his statements to Bo, the big man appeared to ignore the
vendor—all his attention was centered on the two men from the car.
Bo heard a
slight buzz. The man who claimed to be named Bomber spoke, as if in reply to
someone Bo couldn’t see: “No, Roxie, nothing’s going on. A little delay, this
guy doesn’t want to move his cart.”
“Talking to
your terrorist pals?” Bo had decided the jab the business end of the tongs into
the guy’s throat, right behind the corner of his jaw below the ear.
The driver
called out from the other side of the car, “You’re out of time, Bomber!”
“Look,
Rampo, we’ve had our fun, but I’m kinda busy here.”
The
passenger spoke now: “He said you’re out of time, Bomber.”
They’re
both named Rampo? Bo wondered.
He was
moving one foot forward, ready to strike with the tongs, when he saw the older
man reach into his jacket and pull out a gun. Recognition flashed through Bo’s
mind: Glock. 9mm.
Then Bomber
moved.
As Bo saw
the driver also draw a pistol—an identical Glock—the big man beside him seemed
to disappear. But he wasn’t really gone—Bo caught a glance of the giant in the
air, somersaulting over the cart, then he was suddenly standing on the opposite
side of the Superdogs cart.
What the
hell is going on here?
Bomber
grabbed a handful of Bo’s shirt and yanked him over the cart with one arm. “Get
down,” he said, and the men by the car started firing.
Bullets
slammed into the cart—There goes the fresh paint—and each impact point was
marked by a flare of bright fire.
FLAMF!
“Napalm-tipped
loads,” Bomber said. “Nasty.” He was hunkered down by Bo. “Got a weapon?”
Bo held up
the tongs.
“That might
work.”
“Who the
hell are you?”
“Bomber
Jacquet.”
The
sidewalk surface shattered and cement shrapnel pelted the two men.
“That’s a
name?”
“It’s mine.
Nickname, anyway.”
Bo didn’t
hear a buzz this time, but he heard someone yelling in a teeny-tiny voice in
Bomber’s ear:
>>Bomber,
what is going on?!<<
“Traffic
problem, Roxie, don’t worry.” He snap-fast chanced a look around the corner of
the cart for a peek at their attackers before a fresh blast of flame bloomed at
the very point he had been exposed. “Sell footlongs?”
“No,” Bo
answered.
“Too bad.”
“Why?”
“You’d need
a bigger cart. Give you more cover for times like these.”
“I wasn’t
really expecting times like these.”
FLAMF!
FLAMF! FLAMF!
>>Bomber,
I need to know Right Now what is your status?<<
“We’re all good
here, Roxie. No worries.” Bomber turned to Bo. “The way they’re going at it,
they should both have to snap in a fresh clip at the same time in about eight
seconds. Here, let’s see those tongs.”
But before
his fingers touched the metal—
BOOM!
The sidewalk
cracked as the ground vibrated.
A manhole
cover jumped into the sky from the street. The two gunmen stopped shooting to
watch the disk arc through the air, then they threw their hands over their
heads and raced down the street.
The iron
plate crashed into the hood of the Studebaker. Glass flew in a glittering rain.
Bomber
snorted. “That’s not seventy minutes. Roxie, it’s early. It’s all happening.”
>>I’m
not joking, Bomber.<<
“No jokes,
baby, it’s coming down now.”
>>Don’t
call me baby.<<
Bomber
raised his head to peer over the cart to the street. Bo joined him.
“Ah! Ah!
Ah!” was all the hot dog vendor could manage to say.
>>Bomber?
Bomber!<<
“I’m here,
Roxie.” Bomber peered over the battered cart. “I sure wish you sold footlongs,
buddy.”
Bo had
stopped saying “Ah!” and simply stared.
“Our early
arrival is coming up from an erupted manhole in the middle of the street, close
to the curb near the statue.” Bomber twisted his neck a moment to see if the
gunmen from the Studebaker were still in the area. No sign. “It ain’t pretty.”
>>I’ve
got no visual. Can you describe it?<<
“You know
those hydras the teacher made you look at in the microscope in high school
biology? That’s its head. Sickly yellow, like it’s been living in its momma’s
basement. Sizewise, its head is about as tall as the diameter of a car tire. A
big car. Like an SUV. After that—”
>>After
what?<<
“After that, it’s tentacles. Big fat ones.”
The
tentacles were big and fast. They flashed out of the broken manhole—four, with
apparently more to come—and reached. Two wrapped around the railing surrounding
the hero’s statue. One stretched and gripped the driver-side door post through
the Studebaker’s broken windows. Another headed toward the hot dog cart, and
still another started to rise from below street level.
Bomber
vaulted over the cart. “Kreegah! Bundolo!!”
>>Bomber?<<
Bo watched.
Long, springing leaps carried Bomber into the air and toward the monster. At
the top of the airborne arc right above the creature’s head, Bomber swung a
long samurai sword -- a katana -- over his head and down as he descended.
Where’d
that come from? Bo wondered.
The thing
jerked aside its head, and Bomber’s swing missed. The creature’s gatelike jaw
opened and Bo heard a roar—but it sounded more like a truck-load of cellophane
scrunching together all at once.
Bomber’s
sword flared light from the sun as he dipped, skipped, leaped, and twisted,
swinging the blade in arcs that sliced the tentacles from the monster’s body
where they were rooted near the head.
The
cellophane screeching continued and got louder. The detached tentacles—twenty
and thirty feet long—thrashed and twisted. The railing around the statue was
wrenched from its anchors and flung into a drug store window. Against the
racket of the crashing plate glass, Bo saw the wrecked Studebaker hammered
against the pavement by the tentacle that still clung to its door post, and
broken asphalt and concrete danced and bounced with the quickly demolished car.
The
crackling yowls emanating from the yellow mouth of the armless creature now
were so great Bo could not hear Bomber. But he saw that strange, ungainly giant
spring once more into the air, pirouette, and slice the head of the beast from
its neck. The quivering stump spewed a yellow gout of viscous goo, then
collapsed out of sight into the manhole.
Bo blinked.
He stood up from where he’d hunkered behind his cart.
The
tentacles had withered and now look like old yellow balloons that had lost
their air, flat and wrinkled.
Metropolis
square looked like some war zones Bo had once trod. He could hardly believe his
eyes. His ears still rang, but he could hear an approaching siren in the
distance.
Bomber
rubbed his palms against his thighs, like a schoolboy wiping grease from his
hands onto his pants. The sword was nowhere in sight.
He was
walking back toward the cart, and Bo could hear him talking.
“No, it’s
gone now. It came out of a manhole, and it was big and ugly and gooey inside,
but it didn’t smell.” He looked up at Bo. “Did you smell anything?”
“Uh, no.”
“Me
neither. Don’t like a smelly monster.”
>>Bomber,
are you okay?<<
“I’m fine.
Town looks a little rough.”
Bo asked,
“How did you do that?”
Bomber
grinned and light flashed in the lenses of his glasses. “Clean living.”
A police
car roared into the square and swerved as its driver stomped the brakes.
“What was
that thing?” Bo asked.
“I’d call
it a monster. Unless it’s a typical citizen shows up here for hot dogs on a
regular basis.”
Bo blinked,
not sure what to say next. Then he felt the pavement shudder beneath his feet.
Bomber
looked back at the manhole.
“Oh, poot,”
he said.
>>Bomber,
what now?<<
Bomber
began to sing, but Bo was hardly conscious of the words. Because as the odd
giant began to sing, cracked concrete and pavement around the sundered manhole
flew into the air as the hole expanded. A bushel-sized chunk collapsed the roof
of the squad car and the siren squealed back into life.
The
pavement around the broken hole surged upward. More pavement flew as something
else reared up from underground.
Like the
first creature, it was yellow and roared in a cellophane-crackling voice. But
it was three times the size of the first. It shoved upward, and its massive
head swam in the air fifteen feet above Bo’s height. The tentacles—Bo counted
six so far—were thicker and longer. One whipped out of sight around the corner
and flashed back into the main area of the square swinging a small Volkswagen.
It flung the vehicle to crash into the still-wailing squad car, and the siren
went silent.
The two
policemen hid behind the statue and fired their automatic pistols. The monster
seemed not to notice.
Then Bomber
ran forward, the katana again in his hands, and Bo heard his song:
“I cain’t
get no . . . sad-iz-fack-shun. . .”
He
leaped—He’s like a kangaroo or something, Bo thought—and somersaulted in
midair. The blade aimed to cleave the creature’s head from top to bottom, held
in both hands.
Then a
lightning-swift tentacle snapped like a whip. Bomber flew to the side, and the
sword pinwheeled down the street. The flare of the sunlight on the blade left a
fiery streak burned onto Bo’s sight that left him blinking and rubbing his
eyes.
Bomber hit
the curb hard. He was on the other side of the street from Bo. The big man got
up, shook like a wet dog, ducked as another tentacle whipped past.
He jumped,
cartwheeled, dove, rolled as he dodged the snapping tentacles. He landed
lightly on his feet by the hot dog cart.
“Quick!” he
yelled at Bo. He plucked a black cylinder from one of his jacket pockets and handed it
to the vendor. It was about six inches long and four across. “Wrap this in as
many hot dogs as you can. When I holler, throw it to me.”
Then he
snatched the parasol, still furled, from the ruined cart. He ran at the
crackling beast, hefting the shaft of the umbrella like a pole vaulter, and
roared: “Tarmangani bundolo!”
Bomber
rammed the shaft into the maw of the creature, and his momentum opened the
umbrella with a sharp POP! The monster shook its head, and its tentacles swam
toward the object that both gagged it and spread its jaws so that it couldn’t
open them further or close them.
Bo had
wrapped a string of steaming hot dogs around the cylinder and secured them with
a strap he’d ripped from his apron. He was just pulling the knot tight when he
heard Bomber: “Gimme a frankfurter ‘fore I die!”
Bo launched
the package to Bomber with the best form he’d used since his high school
football days. Something popped in his shoulder, but his aim was true. Bomber
caught the package.
The monster
had just shredded the fabric and extricated the bent metal remains of the
umbrella from its mouth when Bomber threw he hot dog-wrapped cylinder into the
still-open hole in the vast yellow face.
The monster
appeared to choke, then its mouth shut.
Its
tentacles ceased their wild movement, remaining motionless in mid-whip.
Bomber
leaped and landed beside Bo behind the cart. “Get down!”
And then
the monster erupted.
Bo and
Bomber were knocked flat and kissed the sidewalk, but the cart—twisted, bent,
and spewing steam—took the brunt of the force wave.
The entire
square was drenched in a downpour of yellow rain.
Bomber
helped Bo to his feet. Puddles of yellow ichor were pouring down the storm
drains. Goo dripped from the ends of their noses.
“Subterraneans
can’t stand nitrates,” Bomber said. “Or nitrites. I can’t remember which.”
“What?” Bo
said. “I haven’t heard a boom like that since my Navy days. What’d you say?”
But Bomber
was already walking to the gaping hole in the street. He kicked aside the
flaccid scrap of a tentacle and peered down into the darkness. A tendril of
smoke spun out of the hole and dispersed in the sky.
He could
barely hear Roxie twittering in his ear.
>>Bomber,
pleeeeez answer me. What is going on?”<<
“Threat’s
over, baby. Monster fall down, go boom.”
He could
begin to hear another siren approaching.
“I’m going
down to take a look, see if there are more of these critters around. Catch ‘em
in their hidey hole.”
>>Bomber,
do not, I repeat, Do Not go down underground. You need back up. The Boss will
wring your neck as a prelude to serious torture if you do not follow this
order.”
“Sorry,
baby, the dark and dirty Down Below is calling me. Can’t hear you. Talk later.
Ciao.”
And he
hopped into the air and dropped like a plummet through the jagged-edged hole
into the darkness.
>>Bomber?
Bomber!<<
No
response.
>>Stop
calling me baby!<<
