Killer Be Killed Page 22

  The place had halted all games, as every eye was fixed on their table. Now the place was abuzz as people filed out onto the boardwalk to watch Dogg Holly fight some hotheaded rich kid. The odds weren’t very good and few people would accept a bet. Side bets were made over whether or not the boy would get his gun out in time to die.

  Rex stood in the middle of the street; acting out some ancient movie he’d seen someplace.

  Dogg turned to Talbert, the latter still seated at the table. Talbert really wanted to finish the game. He had a winning hand.

  “This’ll really piss him off,” Dogg said. “Let me borrow your gun.”

  “You want my gun?” Talbert asked.

  “Mine doesn’t come with a stun option,” he said.

  “You’re just going to stun him?” Talbert asked, looking impressed and amused.

  “Maybe when he wakes up in the new jail, he’ll consider himself lucky to be alive and move along to another hobby,” Dogg said, taking Talbert’s gun.

  *

  Roslyn noticed the crowd and wondered what sort of carnival was now taking place. She recognized the man-child standing in the street, but it took a moment to remember when and where she’d seen him. Was he about to duel someone?

  She searched for her friends. Puff flew above the crowd and then landed again on her shoulder with a squawk. He pointed his head toward the casino. She noticed Hattie standing near the door and she fought through the crowd to get up next to her.

  “This kid wants to fight Dogg,” Hattie filled her in.

  “I know him from someplace,” Roslyn said, staring at the boy in the street. Puff made a noise through his nostril holes. Roslyn glanced at him, unsure what he wanted to say.

  “What is it?” Roslyn asked her dragon. Puff didn’t respond, instead he watched the boy in the street.

  “For the record, folks, my name is Rex Omnious,” Rex shouted above the din. “I’m the man who’s going to kill Dogg Holly.”

  “Go home,” some lady shouted over a few people’s laughter.

  “It must suck to have to deal with idiots like this guy,” Roslyn said.

  The throngs stirred as Dogg exited the casino. People parted to allow him access to the street. A few people reached out to touch him as he passed. He had a fresh cigarette dangling from his lips.

  Dogg strolled out to face Rex at twenty paces.

  “I suppose this is a standard duel, then?” Dogg asked. “You say when.”

  “Perhaps someone neutral should count us off?” Rex suggested, looking around for someone to step forward. A chubby man with a long beard agreed.

  “Okay, I say you guys go on three,” Chubby said.

  “That sounds about standard,” Dogg replied, puffing his cigarette, blowing smoke through his nose.

  “Okay, then,” Chubby said, loudly. “One… Two… Thr--”

  Rex dropped suddenly to his knees and fired. Still, Dogg shot first, but Rex ducked the bolt on his way to his knees. Had he remained standing it would have hit Rex in the forehead.

  Dogg’s chest tore open. Blood splattered into the air as his body fell backward into the mud. Grace screamed and ran toward her fallen lover. All went quiet.

  No one moved for what felt like an eternity.

  “No!” Grace finally belted out, running into the street. “No! Dogg! Get up!”

  Murmurs followed from the crowds.

  Rex stood and strode toward Dogg’s body. “He’s mine!”

  Grace slunk down and cradled Dogg’s head in her lap, bawling. “No, baby. We’ll fix it. Open your eyes.”

  “Move back from the body or join him!” Rex shouted, pointing his gun at Grace’s head.

  Talbert, Hattie and Roslyn pushed their ways to the street but as they made for Grace, Dogg and Rex, a large hairy figure stepped in their way. Its eyes glowed red like embers of a fire. His low growls followed his panting rhythm. Roslyn hovered in her chair, trying to get a better view.

  Talbert drew but before he could fire, the hairy beast leapt and kicked him to the ground. With a growl and another kick, he managed to take Hattie off of her feet. He slammed into Roslyn’s chair, dumping her to the ground. He now hovered over them, snarling, as Rex drug Dogg’s body by the ankle toward the parking garage.

  Upon discovering the large beasts on Lynceus, people had named them Lycans. There was a bit of a werewolf quality to their appearance, though the name wasn’t entirely accurate. It stood eight-feet-tall and was covered in grey and brown hair, especially about the back, where the hair was longer down the spine and along the short tail. His face resembled a disfigured man in that it had two forward facing, red glowing eyes, with yellow pupils, a thin pointy nose and a wide gaping mouth, full of sharp teeth and long fangs. His ears pointed up the side his elongated skull. His muscular arms hung down to his knees. The smooth ashy grey belly had less hair. Six darker grey nipples ran in two rows from his chest to his midsection.

  Though the Lycan both terrified and fascinated her, Roslyn tried to look past him to see exactly what Rex was doing with Dogg’s body. She spotted him dragging it into the garage.

  “Come back here! He’s not yours to have,” she yelled throwing dirt and spitting curses.

  Puff swooped and tried to peck the Lycan’s head but he swatted the dragon away with long, powerful arms. Puff flew into a wall and slid down it.

  Rex must’ve used Dogg’s handprint to unlock his buggy because within a couple of minutes, the black hearse-buggy hovered out of the garage.

  “No!” cried Grace as she noticed Dogg’s body propped in the passenger seat of the buggy. Rex drove toward the Lycan and the back hatch opened. The Lycan leapt onto the hatch door and it closed with a hiss. They then sped away toward the volcanoes.

  Grace wailed and moaned, digging her hands into the dirt. Roslyn crawled to her side and embraced her firmly. Perhaps it was out of pure empathy, but Roslyn began to sob along with her friend. The two women held each other and wept in the street as the people slowly went back to what they were doing before. Most of them were dazed. A few mumbled about it over whiskeys.

  Roslyn wanted to tell her anything to help her to stop hurting so deeply. She contemplated telling her that this is exactly how Dogg wanted to die. But that felt too soon. Just let her cry for now.

  Roslyn, Hattie, and Talbert sat with her through the night. From her chair, Roslyn mulled over how she felt and why she too was so very sad. Unbeknownst to him, Dogg had been part of their team. She spotted Talbert’s Adam’s apple quiver and he swallowed hard. He blinked and turned away.

  Finally, in the middle of the night, Grace fell asleep. They went back to Star’s hotel and took two rooms. Roslyn stayed in a room alone, while Hattie and Talbert shared.

  “What’s that cheatin’ little prick want with his body?” Talbert asked, plopping down on the adjacent bed. They held an emergency meeting in Roslyn’s room.

  “Is Dogg’s body his trophy?” Roslyn asked.

  “Snot nosed little fucker is going to go around the colonies showing off his kill. Elvis Christ, he might charge people to see the body.” Talbert sighed deeply and rubbed his temples.

  “What? Is he going to have him stuffed and shit?” Roslyn asked. She froze. An idea bulb popped inside her head. “Can we search for taxidermists anywhere around here and the neighboring camps?”

  “There’s not going to be a data base,” Talbert said.

  “The data base is going around and asking people,” Roslyn said.

  The following day the team, including Wyatt and Bat, fanned out and questioned the camp about a taxidermist.

  Roslyn crossed the fifth street in her chair, when she stopped. Drago stood leaning against a post. He stared at her. He’d gotten a haircut and was freshly shaved.

  “Hey,” Drago said finally.

  “Hey,” she answered.

  “Heard about Dogg Holly,” Drago said in a softened voice.

  “Yeah,” she said with a sad sigh.

  “Surprised you’r
e still here,” he said after a moment.

  “We’re leaving soon,” she said. “We’re trying to find the son-of-a-bitch that did it. Know anybody that stuffs animals?”

  “Not in this camp. I knew a guy back in Phoenix who stuffed dragons. All due respect, Puff,” Drago said looking at the dragon on her shoulder.

  “What good are you?” she said, half joking.

  “Well, I was thinking about that,” Drago said. “Do you have agents who don’t go undercover? Who wear a badge of some kind and all that?”

  “Yeah. Of course we do,” Roslyn said, trying to hide her grin. “Is that something you might be interested in?”

  He slowly nodded and thrust out his bottom lip.

  *

  Talbert found a man who skinned reptiles for people but not an outright taxidermist.

  “Do you know of anyone who would stuff creatures? You know as souvenirs and stuff to send back to Earth?” Talbert asked. But a prospector running toward them intercepted the answer. Talbert brushed back his jacket and slackened his knees.

  “You gotta come see this, sir,” the man said as he reached Talbert.

  The prospector led Talbert out of the camp and into the hills. The sharp tang of chlorophyll and decay borrowed the breeze. They came upon a dormant campsite. Prospector introduced himself eventually as Vincent Van Grothic or Vinnie G for short. He’d been a DJ at night and prospector by day it turned out.

  “Looks like they cooked the body,” Vinnie G said, kicking at the ashes in the fire pit.

  Talbert bent and turned over a pile of leaves. Beneath them he found a gun. At first that’s all it was. But then its familiarity focused and intensified and he realized the significance of the site. It was his gun and it was still set on stun. After setting it back to kill, he slid it into his holster.

  But then he noticed the blackened rib cage.

  A femur bone and skeletal hand had been charred and stripped of their meat.

  “Over here’s the skull,” Vinnie G said walking around a boulder.

  Talbert rounded the boulder and as he did the scolded skull came into view. Talbert stared at it for a long moment, secretly saying good-bye to a man he admired, despite his shortcomings and lack or morality. He didn’t deserve this.

  Vinnie G shivered in the brisk breeze and clapped his hands together as if to signal a break and a redirect.

  Talbert finished his silent eulogy and was about to turn away when he caught glimpse of something white inside the eye socket of the skull. Kneeling more closely he realized it was paper. Fingering the eye socket, he managed to pull the parchment out.

  Quickly he unrolled the small paper. It took him a moment to focus on the words. But then they sharpened with his vision.

  They read: Your voluptuous wife, still walks, talks and breathes inglorious life. Love, -- RO.

  END OF BOOK ONE…

  NOTES

  Travis’ Notes:

  Thanks for reading, THE FRONTIER BOOK ONE: KILLER BE KILLED.

  Feel free to check out BOOK TWO: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

  https://www.amazon.com/Devil-You-Know-Frontier-Book-ebook/dp/B074GBLBJ2/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1506564239&sr=1-3&keywords=Travis+E.+Hughes

  There are also extended short stories written that take place in world of THE FRONTIER. If you liked DOGG HOLLY here’s his backstory. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075FV2Z1S/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

  Travis E. Hughes

  I have been a writer since before I could spell. I came naturally to it, as I was spawned from a long line of jokesters, liars, and storytellers. I grew up in the country, in a gorgeous little town in southwest Missouri, with three younger brothers to bounce my ideas off of. We are all still very close. If crying to tears is your idea of a good time have a few beers with my brothers.

  In college I joined a comedy TV show made on campus and from there a few of our more “artistic” sketches were sent to a film festival in Kansas City. There I met and befriended one of the producers of the film TOMBSTONE. I had recently completed my first screenplay. He agreed to read it. He liked it and sent notes and I revised the next draft and sent it back. He optioned the piece and took it to Fox Searchlight Pictures. I was barely a twenty-one year old kid and I had already made it big in Hollywood. During the time my screenplay was being read by Fox Searchlight, I decided to visit a couple of friends who had recently moved to Chicago.

  Through a bizarre series of coincidences, my friend Paul ended up working at a bar across from the acclaimed Second City Comedy Theater. In high school I was obsessed with three things:

  First AC/DC then later Led Zeppelin, The Godfather, (and all things related), and Saturday Night Live. For those not in the know when it comes to the comedy world, Google The Second City. I don’t have time here for a history lesson but everyone from Belushi to Farley to Tina Fey got his or her starts there.

  So I was most excited to see where he worked above all other sites in the city. But when we got there, despite it being lunchtime, the doors were closed. Paul, the same Paul who shoots my covers now, took me down the alley and we went in through the back entrance to find Richard, the owner, standing, smoking a cigar and fuming out of his ears. He explained how the day shift bartender hadn’t shown. He asked if I knew how to tend bar. I lied and said of course I did. I got the job on the spot. That was my interview.

  The next week I found out that Fox had passed on my script, but what did I care? I could easily do that again with an even better screenplay, right? Besides I had Chicago and Second City to distract me.

  It didn’t take long before I was caught up in that world. I rose fast in it. But I was a writer and not an actor and another series of strange coincidences took my away from all of that after about five years, eventually landing me in the south suburbs with a wife and three kids. But the rest of that is for another time.

  To say I struggled to fit into the suburban mold would be a blatant understatement. I couldn’t wear white sneakers with blue jeans and a tucked-in golf shirt. I don’t golf and I don’t bowl and I don’t throw bags well. I don’t really get that culture at all. I went from being this artist in the city to owning a minivan in less than three years. So things slowly but surely soured for me. All the while, I continued to write and escape into my mind. For many years I wrote screenplays. I had a couple of them optioned but never sold outright. But still I wrote. Churning out project after project. I grew weary of Hollywood and eventually downright cynical about the industry itself, and so I turned to the novel. Here I have control. There are no budgets in a book, save the ink and the paper. I could write anything I thought of and so I jumped in and buried myself in my computer. When I should have been going on bike rides with my wife, I wrote. When things looked so promising so many times, only to have things fall through after months of rewrites and promises, tiny pieces of me died. But still I had to write. If I could just find the story that hit the right pulse… I believe that I did write a few things that spoke true. My youngest brother Ryan moved to Chicago to get his acting chops before moving to LA. We wrote a play together that was produced in the city and for a brief moment I was once again the artist in the city. But when the run was over, Ryan headed west and I south to the burbs. I made money occasionally from my producer friend for this and that but never enough to do anything with. But still I wrote. It felt like I was cursed or something. I went back to my novels.

  Then I realized, the problem wasn’t my writing, it was the fact that I didn’t know how to market. What people who know me, have no idea about me, is that I’m an extreme introvert. I would make a horrible salesman. I do not like feeling like I’m trying to talk someone into something. If they don’t want it, who am I to try and change their minds? I know I don’t like being sold to. I do unto others, for the most part. But then about a year ago I was introduced, by a big champion of my writing, one of the film producers who optioned a screenplay of mine in the past, to an Indy Author who was making a living at it. That blew my mind. He’d
established a Facebook Group for Indy Authors and allowed me to join. I’ve been learning how to market and how to know which genre I would have the best results in. I chose science fiction. I thought I could get the most out of creating my own universe and going from there. So I set out to write at least three novels, because as the Indy Author stated, the kind of readers I’m looking for read only series, and there has to be at least three books before they’ll even give you a chance. So this is the first of at least a trilogy, but if they are successful enough for me to make a living at, then I’ll keep going with it. We’ll see. But about that curse…

  While completing Book Three, I cut off the end of my finger during a psychotic episode, hoping against all forms of logic that it would bring me good fortune. The incident came at one of the lowest moments of my life. My divorce was nearing its finality and I was fighting my student loan officer over allegations that somehow I’d used up all the loans available to me. It felt like the universe was screaming at me, but I couldn’t figure out what it wanted. A couple of weeks after my finger incident, a portable light post nearly decapitated me. I had been standing right below it trying to crank it down seconds before it fell. It felt like the universe had its boot to my neck, more directly. I realize to some that sounds mad. But there’s a fine line between madness and clever. And like Boris Yeltsin once said, “Never approach a yak from the right flank, unless you have a fresh walnut in your left hand.”