Blood is Sicker than Thieves

The blindingly bright flames of the bonfire cast long, ominous shadows behind the four men surrounding it. It was mid-January, the coldest time of the year, but the huge blaze was obviously for more than warmth. One man tossed an empty beer into the fire, and it crackled as if welcoming the bottle. Another took a stack of newspaper off the roof of a beat-up sedan with no plates, and threw it around the base. The fire roared and rose even higher, cutting into the midnight darkness. One of them raised his beer above his head, and shouted something that was muffled by the sounds of the inferno. The other men yelled their apparent agreement, and they started to move around the fire, constantly making noise. Their pace quickened until they were all jogging in a circle, and then, as one, they suddenly stopped. Eight fists flew into the air, and their loud cry rang into the otherwise silent night, and the fire ascended higher still.

-----

Ken Kesey swung open the door, and walked lazily to the counter. He unbuttoned the heavy winter coat, and took off the insulated shoulder bag with ‘Pizza Palace’ written in bold lettering. He leaned over the scrubbed counter.

“Hey Maurice, anything else for tonight?”
“One more, Ken, just one. You ain’t gonna like me.”
“And why’s that, may I ask?”
“Coz it’s in the Crumbs.”
“Darn it! I wanted to catch a TV show at seven,” Ken complained.
“Yeah well, them’s the breaks, kid.”
“Man. Right at the end of the day.”

Ken shoved the large pizza box into his shoulder bag, and made his way out. As he opened the door, a gust of frigid air took away his breath. He pulled the hood of the coat over his head and swung his leg over a dirty blue Honda motorcycle. The tired engine coughed into action, Ken eased the old bike onto the road, and drove off. As he turned onto another road, he grumbled to himself about where he was going.

The Crumbs was the unofficial name for an ever-expanding trailer park on the city limits. It was the seediest of neighbourhoods in a seedy town, and was mostly populated by past and present criminals, drunkards and prostitutes. Ken, just like everyone else, usually steered far clear of the place, but a pizza delivery boy couldn’t choose his deliveries. This job was the only one available to Ken when he arrived in town, so he took it. He had moved across the city about a year ago, after two life-threatening events. He manoeuvred the bike onto the highway, and picked up speed.

His old home had only been a few miles away from the Crumbs. He used to work at a convenience store, but a robbery there made him quit. The robber had actually tried to bump him off afterwards, but Ken survived and killed him instead. Then while Ken was in the hospital a few weeks later, the guy’s brother came on a vendetta mission. Ken managed to kill him, too. But the attempts on his life had taken their toll, so he packed up and came here, to Lanford. He looked in the side mirror and switched lanes. It had taken him four months to recover from his injuries, which included a broken kneecap and a gunshot wound in his shoulder. He was fully recovered now, except for scars on his hands and shoulder. Night was just beginning to fall, and Ken could see a long line of traffic moving in the opposite direction. Everybody going home. He sighed. Whoever ordered this pizza better be a good tipper.

Now, he had a new home, a new job, a new life. He was glad that he didn’t have to be afraid to go out, or even to stay home. The Turpin brothers were dead and gone, and even their drug-addict mother had passed away. After hearing of her sons’ death, she had overdosed on amphetamines. He had nothing to worry about…except this stupid delivery.

Ken geared down the motorcycle, and turned off the highway. Road quickly gave way to dirt paths, and he knew he was in the right place. A stench pervaded the area, a steady aura of garbage and human despair. He wanted to turn back, but he was too close now. The Honda winded its way around refuse and people, and Ken searched for the right trailer. He finally spotted it around a bend, a particularly filthy trailer. His eyes fell on the old car in front of it, with no license plates. He climbed off the bike and shuffled up to the makeshift door. Jingling the change in his pocket, he rapped twice.

“Who’s it?” A gruff, male voice came through the door.
“Pizza,” Ken replied.
“Ugh…the door’s op’n.”

Ken turned the grimy handle and the door creaked open. He had taken only one step when a coarse hand grabbed his shirt and hauled him inside. He fell to the floor and instantly a huge pair of hands closed around his neck. Gasping for breath, he looked up and saw four men over him, evil sneers on their faces. The hands tightened, and Ken could not breathe. He kicked his legs and flailed his free arm wildly, but to no avail. The hands were like a vise, there was no escape. His other hand was still in his pocket, pinned by the weight of the man on top of him. Ken closed his fingers around a quarter, and slowly, painfully, tried to pull his hand out of the pocket. His lungs were burning for air. Consciousness was beginning to fade. With enormous effort, he concentrated on pulling his hand out. The world was getting black, his eyes were closing…And then his hand was free, with his last ounce of strength he swung at the man, he heard a howl of pain, and felt the weight leave his body. He had to get up, he just had to. Groggily, he stumbled to his feet. It was as if he were looking through a fog. He saw through blurred vision, the man on the ground, hands over his face, and the other three trying to help him. He began to run to the door, but his legs seemed to be made of jelly. One of the men noticed Ken as he staggered through the open door, and pulled out a Beretta 9000S. He raised the pistol, and laughed wickedly.

Ken dropped to the ground quickly, and the shot flew over his head. With speed born out of sheer terror, he jumped onto his bike, spun it around, and gunned the engine. The cycle tore up the path, leaving the faint odour of burnt rubber. Careening through the community, Ken racked his brains as to who these people were. The crisp night air made him instantly alert. There was no possible connection between them and the Turpin brothers, Ken told himself. The entire family was dead. This must be something else, but what?

A roar from behind made him look back. The car that had been parked outside the trailer was gaining on him like a charging bull. Women and children dove out of the way as the vehicle accelerated blindly towards Ken. Headlights glaring, the sedan looked menacing as it ate up the distance between them. Ken leaned low over his bike, put it in third gear, and picked up the pace. He screeched onto the highway with the car twenty feet behind him. The traffic had cleared to the point where the vehicles were now moving at highway speeds. Ken’s nose and ears were frozen from the biting wind. His heart pounded. The rear windows of the old Pontiac slid down and two Berettas came into view. Bullets splattered the asphalt beside Ken’s bike. He swerved into another lane, almost crashing into a minivan. The Pontiac also shifted lanes three cars behind him, and a bullet smashed the window of the minivan. Ken could see the look of horror on the driver’s face. The thug driving the Pontiac now went into the emergency lane and floored the accelerator. Ken had nowhere to go as the vehicle steadily covered the distance between them. The Beretta sticking out the window fired again, and a hole appeared in Ken’s shoulder bag. It was a matter of time before a bullet hit him. Suddenly, Ken had an idea.

He pulled in-between lanes, and yanked upwards on the handlebars. The bike’s front wheel lifted off the ground, and Ken wheelied straight up the highway. Passing inches from the vehicles on both sides, Ken risked a look back at the Pontiac, and saw it still speeding up the side lane. Moments later, both vehicles were parallel one lane apart, a station wagon separating them. The two men in the back fired recklessly through the station wagon, and one shot hit the driver in the head. His head slumped onto the steering column, and the vehicle slowed down. The Pontiac quickly slid sideways into the lane. Cold sweat covering his face, Ken looked to his right and stared down the barrel of a shotgun.

Without thinking, he jerked the handlebar to the right, and slammed down on the front wheel brake. The wheel locked, and the back of the bike skidded in a semi-circle. Before the men realized what had happened, Ken had turned his bike around to face the traffic. Ken revved his engine and headed straight for the oncoming vehicles. Meanwhile, the Pontiac was hopelessly far behind. Ken heard a series of screeches and the horrible sound of metal on metal. No time to glance behind, Ken zigzagged up the road. His bike and the traffic were hurtling towards each other at a combined speed of more than 150 mph. The headlights blocked his vision, and many times he only just managed to veer out of the way. He lined himself in the middle of two lanes, and craned his neck to see the horrible accident that he had heard. What met his eyes almost made him faint. The Pontiac, severely damaged with both headlights and the windshield shattered, was still following him!

The vehicle was riding the middle of the same two lanes as Ken, in the most reckless nature possible. Every automobile that passed got dented and scraped. Drivers swung their cars to either side to avoid the madmen. It was total chaos. Ken urged his motorcyle onwards, and tried not to think about his impending death. All his manoeuvres had failed, and now he was going to die. He had only one hope. He looked across the highway, and his eyes fell on a road sign: Waterton, Next Exit.

Frantically, Ken searched for the turn-off. And then, he spotted it. There was only one small problem. He was on the wrong side of the highway. A bullet whizzing past his head inspired resourcefulness, however. Quickly, he drove sideways across lanes, across the island, across four more lanes, missing a vehicle by a split second, and hit the off-ramp. He cruised down the ramp, sure that there was no way the Pontiac could have pulled this one. A swift look behind him confirmed his view. He settled in the seat of the bike and slowed down. He had done it.

The turn-off led to a old road covered with potholes. As he slowly made his way down, Ken realized that he was at the waterfront. On the right, boarded-up warehouses lined the road, and on the left was a series of wooden piers, each roughly twenty feet from the next. He could hear the soft crashing of the waves against the poles of the piers, and the water was pitch-black. Everywhere were piles of crates, and the road was damp from the occasional spray of seawater. Light came from two lampposts close to the warehouses. Ken was alone, and as the cycle sputtered along, his mind returned to the question of the identity of these four men. What could he have done to warrant this kind of determination to kill him? he wondered. He reasoned that, as improbable as it sounded, these men had to be connected to the Turpin brothers. He had reached the end of the road. He turned the bike around and started up the road. Could it be that the mother had hired them? No, she was dead, Ken remembered. Maybe they were part…

That thought was interrupted by the low grumble of a car muffler. As Ken squinted in the semi-darkness, the beat-up Pontiac crunched onto the road. Ken cursed himself for not hiding. Of course they’d come down here. Why hadn’t he hid? He could still hide if he could get inside one of the warehouses. He spotted an open one roughly fifty feet from his current position. He kicked the motorbike into life, and gunfire rang out. Then, as if they realized what he was trying to do, the sedan made a beeline for Ken’s bike. Twenty feet away, Ken realized he was not going to reach in time. He turned sharply to his right, but not soon enough. The car hit the back wheel of the bike, sending it and Ken spinning. His right leg scraped along the ground as he skidded, tearing through his blue jeans and cutting into his flesh. The motorbike hit the curb, and Ken was tossed into a pile of crates, where the back of his head split open on a plank.

He stood up unsteadily, and ran limping down the nearest pier. Had his head not been bleeding freely, Ken might have appreciated how stupid that was. The Pontiac reversed, and stopped at the beginning of the wooden dock. Ken realized, with a sickening feeling, that they were going to run him over. He could only jump into the freezing, below-zero water and wait for them to shoot him. To the men in the car, Ken Kesey was a pathetic sight. Standing at the edge of the water, with a bloody head and leg, his jeans, coat and bag all torn, it was too easy. The engine announced its intention, and Ken swallowed. To his left, an abandoned cargo crane was rusting away. Its pulley was positioned so that the cable and hook hung ten feet in the air, exactly halfway down the pier. It creaked with the breeze, as if laughing at Ken. He took off the bag and held it in his hand. Then a deep voice pierced the gloom.

“There’s nowhere to go, Kenny boy,” it boomed.
Weakly, Ken stared at the car through half-closed eyes, and shouted, “Tell me one thing, though.”
“What?”
“Who the f--- are you?”
“Who are we? Kenny boy, you of all people should know who we are. Don’t you read the news? It was all over the papers that both the Turpin brothers had died. Did you stop reading then, Ken? Didn’t you read that both leaders o’ the Turpin gang were dead? Yes, Kenny boy. We are what’s left o’ the Turpin gang, the Turpin gang that started a crime wave a year and a half ago. Your pathetic corner store was part o’ that wave. Then you offed both of ‘em, you asshole. This here’s your fault. And now, you’s gonna pay for it.”

The Pontiac screamed, and accelerated towards Ken. Instead of diving into the water, Ken sprinted directly towards the car. Both were heading towards each other at their top speeds. Ken’s breath came in ragged gasps as he continued into an apparent suicide. The vehicle was almost upon him, and Ken could see the malicious grin on the driver’s face. Ken felt the anger boiling up within him. At the last possible moment, he leapt high into the air with the bag over his head. The strap snagged in the hook of the crane, and as Ken lifted his feet up and held on for dear life, the Pontiac shot underneath him, inches from his back. In slow motion, Ken saw the car brake frantically, but the saltwater on the pier made for a slippery surface, and it skidded along, unable to stop. The sedan drove straight off the pier, and a moment later, splashed horribly into the water. Ken heard the muffled screams of the men as they tried to open their doors, but the pressure was too great, and the vehicle was gradually consumed by the sea. He slumped onto the dock, breathing heavily, as the cries of the dying men faded into the soft crashing of the waves on the piers.