As the Dawn Breaks

The autonomic responses which had served Liam so well to date seemed to hiccup momentarily as he stood frozen in place, gun smoke still creating an indistinct halo as it drifted lazily out of the leveled barrel of his Beretta. The Eye Brothers, still incapacitated by his furious onslaught, were beginning to regain their collective wits as their writhing on the floor became less agonized and more purposeful. As his brain slipped back into gear, Liam simultaneously lurched forward and examined his options. With no time for tactical analysis, Liam followed the elusive wisp of implicit memory which had carried him through the night so far. His gut was telling him that the Eye Brothers were more trouble than they were worth and that if he was going to get anywhere at all it would be through Cwik; Liam dutifully followed his gastronomical cognition out the door.

Not bothering to disarm the prone figures on the floor, Liam bolted the handful of steps through the mauled door frame and felt his breath threaten to pack up and go to Florida on vacation as the early morning air hit the film of sweat on his exposed skin. “I’m gonna have to find some clothes here eventually,” Liam thought to himself as he scanned the balcony, standing in the crepuscular gloom of blues and the first small hints of yellow and orange worming their way over the horizon. He was brought back to the task at hand by the muted metallic clank of Cwik stumbling against the railing of the balcony to his right as he continued his dogged, if not somewhat haphazard, escape. Hands still fastened in front of his body with the electrical cord, duct tape still encircling his head and hanging from his clothes, gangly frame skittering down the concrete and wrought iron balcony, Liam reminded himself to laugh at the memory when he wasn’t being pursued by two homicidal thugs and pursuing his only link. Rick seemed to be attempting to untie the cord while running and gaining his bearings all at once, and hadn’t made it more than 15 feet down the balcony. Somewhere a dog began barking an unenthusiastic monologue, and Liam could hear the Brothers begin sniping at each other through the wrecked door still swaying drunkenly on its hinges. Time to go.

His bare feet thumping on the concrete, Liam overtook Cwik in a space of a few strides. With another deft movement which left him surprised, he stepped past him, pivoting with his left foot and planting with his right as he swung Cwik into a fireman’s carry and finished his pirouette to continue running pell-mell down the balcony. Cwik’s frame was surprisingly light on his shoulder, either from his scrawniness or from adrenaline Liam was unsure. He offered no resistance to his new mode of locomotion either, though whether due to surprise or some other reason Liam was again unsure.

Pounding down the stairs with the potato sack Cwik over his shoulder, Liam quickly spotted the black town car parked haphazardly over three parking stalls at the base of the stairs, lights on and engine idling. Apparently the Eye Brothers had been in a hurry to make it up the stairs. Wrenching open the back door, Liam deposited Rick in the back seat and slammed the door after him. Clawing open the front door, Liam swung into the seat. Above him, he heard Charles’ voice shout unintelligibly, answered by Hard Eyes. As he slapped the shifter into reverse and resurfaced a generous portion of La Concha’s parking lot in Goodyear rubber, the pop of pistols just barely inserted themselves over the squeal of tires. Three hailstones hit the roof of Liam’s borrowed ride, echoing with the hollow clunk of a tin can being shot. As he fishtailed out of the parking lot onto the deserted early morning street, he stole a look to the backseat over his shoulder. Ricky was clutching his right thigh with both thin talons and grimacing.

“Those peckers shot me!” he managed to growl, as Liam returned his attention to the road. “This ain’t good, Liam,” he continued, barely audible through his grunts and pants. “I think they nicked a vessel or somethin’. Imma need a Hospital . . .”

Liam should . . .

A) Pump Cwik for information in his wounded state
B) Take Cwik directly to the Hospital
C) Let Cwik bleed and the chips fall where they may
D) Attempt first aid on Ricky

He Returns!

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Editor's Note: This post marks the 100^th post on The Texafornian. Thanks to all of yall who read. May the next 100 be as random and relatively painless as the last!

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Taking stock of his impossibly limited options, Liam knew he didn’t have much time. The door to his suite had already sustained what sounded like an astonishing amount of punishment, far more he ever would have imagined the ragged portal could absorbed, and it was far overdue to buckle and admit his gentlemen callers. When it did, he was confident the proceeding pleasantries would be anything but. Sifting through the pile of loot from Cwik’s pocket, he quickly spotted what he was looking for. Liam flicked an opened Trojan condom wrapper aside and grasped the small but wicked looking knife. He opened it with a smooth *snick*, a whisper of encouragement against the cacophonous tribal beat upon the door.

With the pistol in his right and the small black knife glinting in his left, Liam pointed at Cwik with the later. “Here’s how this is going to happen, Ricky,” said Liam in a low, tense voice, barely audible over the drumming on the door. “You talk, you die. You bolt, you die. You cross your eyes, you get maimed. You say you know me, so you should know I’m not playing games here. When I cut you loose, you’ll stand up and wait for me to tell you what to do. You’re gonna be my lil’ puppet,” Liam finished, giving Cwik a mock jab under the chin. Working quickly and carefully, Liam stepped on Cwik’s feet as he cut the cord holding them, leaving his hands still bound. *THOOM-AArrrccckkkkk!* protested the door, and on the other side the shouts of two men became slightly more audible. Sliding the blade upwards along the side of Cwik and stepping back a pace in one quick movement, he instructed Cwik to stand up. Spreading his feet a bit, Cwik attempted to raise himself from his bonds and only half managed the feat before falling heavily back to the chair. Redoubling his efforts, Rick staggered to his feet as the door finally surrounded its courageous battle with the intruders and spat splinters into the room as it flew back with a loud crack and settled drunkenly on mangled hinges.

Two men in nondescript clothes piled after each other into the room, pistols drawn, and came to a crashing halt just a few paces from Cwik’s demonic scarecrow frame in the cramped room. The cool air now being gulped into the room reminded Liam he was still in his boxers, only increasing his sense of vulnerability and apprehension. Keeping Cwik between himself and the men as much as possible, Liam all-to-comfortably gripped his Berretta and knife in their respective hands. He couldn’t have been more than five paces from the other men, but with the furniture and people clogging the interior there was little room to maneuver.

“Ah, shit,” said the one in front after quickly surveying the situation. He was smaller and lighter than his counterpart, but not by much. He had small, hard eyes that seemed to be looking everywhere and yet nowhere at once. Liam could see those eyes efficiently search Cwik’s face, but what was said or what was understood was impossible to discern from his vantage. Both men now had their pistols up and leveled at Liam.

“Let’s just be cool,” said the other man. His eyes were malicious. Not quick, not stupid. Just mean, and Liam didn’t like them one bit.

“I’d be a lot cooler with you guys walking your asses right back out of my suite the way you came," said Liam levelly. He was shocked to hear the confidence in his own voice. Cwik stood swaying ever so slightly, but Liam still couldn’t see his face.

“Liam, man. You know we can’t let you go. Your pop’ll have our foreskins if we botch this,” said Hard Eyes.

“We’re both already circumcised, numb-nuts!” spat Mean Eyes.

“Well then his pop’ll grow ‘em back and cut ‘em off again, Charles! Only this time we’ll be old enough to remember the process!!” snarled Hard Eyes, now turning to meet Charles’ glare.

Liam reacted before he knew what he was doing. Cwik’s knife flew from his left hand and whistled past it’s previous owner’s right ear as it buried itself Charles’ right shoulder up to the handle, causing his pistol to drop to the ground with a clatter as he lurched back and gripped the blade now sprouting metallically from his flesh. In near simultaneous concert, Liam’s Px4 quietly exploded twice. One round grazed Hard Eyes across his left cheek and the other struck the clavicle just below and he reflexively squeezed off two rounds which bit into the walls as he spun down clutching at his marred visage. The bite of gunpowder and blood exploded in Liam’s nostrils as he spotted Cwik barreling out of the door, hands still bound in front of him.

Liam should now:

A) Chase Cwik and ditch the Eye Brothers.

B) Leave Cwik and interrogate the Eye Brothers.

C) Cut his losses with both and just try to get the heck out of Dodge.

D) Finish off the Eye Brothers and then try and track down Cwik.

All in the Family

“Yeah,” quipped Liam, hardly cognizant of choosing his words before the tumbled from his mouth. “Long time no see.”

“Oh, so now you remember me? I knew you were full of shit, Liam. I knew it! Damn it, and now I’m payin’ the price for m . . .” but Liam stopped hearing the now constant and virulent stream of words erupting from his captive’s mouth. What was this guy talking about? What did he mean, now I remember him? Something tugged at the corner of Liam’s mind, an unsettled buzzing that evaporated with every attempt to bring it to consciousness, only to reconstitute again just past the fringes of his awareness.

Liam squinted away the confusion and raised the pistol he uncomfortably realized had fallen almost slack by his side. “Stupid stupid stupid! Stay focused here,” he thought to himself and he snarled and took a shuffle step towards the interloper in the chair. “Why don’t you just shut your mouth for a second. How ‘bout that, for old time’s sake?” And he pulled the hammer back with his thumb for emphasis.

“Sure, fine, whatev . . .” the stranger began again, seeming to gain steam with his mounting level of consciousness, but was swiftly clammed up as Liam lifted his pistol a few menacing inches. He splayed his hands up in a sign of contorted surrender from under the binding of the tape.

“Here’s how this is gonna work,” said Liam, now itching his temple with the dark muzzle of his borrowed piece. “I’ll ask you questions, you’ll answer. If I think you’re snowin’ me, you’ll get a matching set,” he finished, now gesturing with the pistol at the stranger’s duct taped forehead. The rumpled man grunted and rolled his eyes in resignation. “So first things first, champ. Who the hell are you.”

The man raised his eyebrows, questioning, until Liam waved him on with his free hand. “My name,” came the man’s low reply, “is Cwik. Ricky Cwick.” As the man began his response, Liam had began rifling through the small pile of the man’s possessions. He grabbed the wallet and flipped it open. The Nevada DL of Reginald Walker glowered back at him through yellowing plastic sleeve. Liam shook his head slowly, sneering as he stepped towards the chair and raised his gun.

“Wait!” yelped the prisoner, trying to maneuver his bound body away from the impending blow. Liam remained statuesque, pistol raised back over one shoulder ready to deliver a vicious blow. “Christ! You don’t think I carry my real ID around on me, do you? Walker’s my cover, I’m trying to be honest with you here, man.” Cwik ventured a quick look back up from his cowered position. “You really don’t remember me, do you Liam.”

“Remember you from where?!” erupted Liam, but as Cwik began to formulate his answer, Liam held up a finger. “One thing at a time. One thing at a time, Ricky. Who sent you after me?”

“Well that’s really two birds with one stone right there, Liam. You always were one for efficiency, weren’t you?” Cwik’s eye was crinkling into what appeared to be a grin, but the twinkle only managed to come out menacing in Liam’s estimation.

“So?” demanded Liam, pistol now back at the level, unwavering.

Cwik sighed and dropped his chin towards his chest, then brought his eyes back to meet Liam’s squarely. “Your father sent me here, Liam. Your father sent me to find you after what happened last April, and that’s how you know me. I’ve worked for your father and his family for 27 years.”

The buzz in the back of Liam’s mind got louder, but it was soon drowned out by a loud thud against the door to the suite. The door must have been sturdier than it looked to turn back the first assault, but the frame creaked and Liam saw the wall next to it shudder as a second blow was landed. It was evident the door would not hold long.

“Well,” said Cwik brightly, now apparently fully recovered from his stunning blow earlier. “They didn’t take long to show, did they? For all your efficiency, Liam, you do get bogged down in the details from time to time.”

Blood singing again in his ears, wild eyed, Liam scanned the small room and its contents past the barrel of his pistol. There weren’t many options.

Liam should now:

A) Attempt to barricade the door with furniture

B) Cut Cwik loose and attempt to use him as a hostage

C) Gag and hood Cwik, using him as ambush bait

D) Kill Cwik and use his body as a human shield while trying to escape through the unknown assailants.

Enchanté

Chapter 3

Still absently blinking as his heart rate began to stabilize and the rest of the room came into focus, Liam’s hands fell momentarily to his knees and he stood silently bracing his body on locked elbows like a man who had just sprinted down a hallway and knocked an unexpected interloper to his hotel suite out cold with an oak book-end. As his brain began to warm up, executive functions beginning to catch up with the primal explosion, Liam soon realized that leaving the man unrestrained on the floor would soon prove to be a disastrous course of inaction. Stripping the man of his overcoat, Liam quickly ran through the man’s pockets and retrieved a small pile of booty. Both hands full, casting about the small sitting room in the tangerine glow of the serene ceiling lamp, Liam dumped his haul into the utilitarian wood grained laminate desk against the wall behind him. Next he grabbed the stunted table lamp from where it had been holding up a guide to local eateries and a Gideon’s Bible, and wrenching the cord from the back of the lamp with his left hand he set the pistol down next to the man’s possessions on the desk’s pocked surface got to work on the downed interloper. After awkwardly attempting to reassemble the scattered limbs, Liam hog-tied the stranger where he lay and eased him onto his side. Liam was almost overcome with the wave of stale marijuana smoke mingled with cheap booze and cheaper aftershave as the man’s face oscillated towards the ceiling. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, his still-heightened senses reeling from such a salient olfactory encounter, Liam left his ears in the sitting room and shot back down the hall towards the bedroom to retrieve his large black duffel. Ripping the zipper the length of the bag and unceremoniously dumping its contents in a shower of matted socks and rumpled t-shirts, Liam scooped up the roll of duct tape that had fallen heavily on top of the clothes and hurried back down the hall to find his charge unchanged.

Lugging the man’s body into the musty overstuffed sitting chair, cheek to cheek with the sallow visage of his assailant, Liam could feel his shallow breathing as the abrasive stubble grated into his own moderately scruffy skin. He haphazardly spun several dozen laps of the silvery webbing taut around the man’s body, the tape screeching as it pulled loose from the roll, securing him to the seat. Gaunt frame sagging against the restraint, Liam quickly assessed the man’s wounds. Not too bad. The man’s nose had nearly stopped bleeding, but the gash on his head looked angry and was still pushing a moderate amount of blood through the nascent clots. Wincing despite himself as he leaned in for a closer look, he took in the face’s features. They were craggy and grizzled, a face that could have been any age between 28 and 53, and seemed malicious even in their unconscious state. Scars festooned the man’s lips and cheeks, and lines of hard living were etched into deep folds around his eyes and mouth.

Liam quickly double checked the bonds on the man’s hands and feet and dashed off again down the hall to the bathroom, retrieving a spare roll of toilet paper and a plastic trash can with a brown flower on the front. Filling the trash can with a few inches of water from the faucet, Liam returned to crudely staunch the wound and clean some of the blood away with a sopping mass of cheap one-ply toilet paper. Once he had effected some semblance of repair, Liam dropped his bloody wad of tissue into the remaining water at the bottom of the trash can. As diluted blood continued to make its way down the eroded crags of the man’s cheek, Liam ripped off another four-inch swatch of duct tape and stretched it as tight as he could over a patch of fresh toilet paper before pressing it over the rend on the man’s oily forehead. Slapping it soundly once for good measure, he nearly tripped on his own feet as the man suddenly jerked and began to struggle against the layers of tape adhering him to the chair. The prisoner emitted a growling noise as he vainly thrashed in the grips of the tape, wild and low, but never cried out. Swiftly regaining his poise, Liam snatched the pistol from off the desk nearby and leveled it at the stranger, now glaring at him. One eye was nearly obscured with blood and duct tape. The other eye half squinted at Liam, who was unable to tell if the man was attempting to smile or glare at him.

“Oh, hello, Liam,” the man croaked. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Liam should respond:

A) "Yeah, long time no see."

B) "You've got about three seconds to start talking before I paint my nice pretty room here with the shit you call your brains."

C) "Who are you and what do you want with me?"

D) Say nothing, but stare coldly down the barrel of his new gun.

Let's Try That Again . . .

Chapter 2b

Digging his knuckles into his eye sockets and straining his already extended senses beyond their limits, Liam could almost swear he could now hear the soft whistle of breathing intermittently trickle down the short dim hallway which lead to the rest of the suite he had been occupying for the last two weeks. His thoughts drifted to the past seven months of furtive habitation in suite after dingy suite in dive after dilapidated dive. He tried to remember the last time he had managed to string together more than six hours of restful sleep, but only managed to come up with a memory of his 7^th birthday party. Transformer theme. That had been fun.

Savagely shaking his head and rubbing his knuckles across his scalp, Liam froze as a he heard a soft suppressed cough ricochet down the hallway. His adrenal glands found a new gear he thought might actually cause him to vomit as the invisible spear of excitement exploded in his gut and effervesced through his scalp and toe-nails. Backing away from his perch directly behind the thin partition, Liam eased his head towards the hall-ward side of the door, catching a peek at the stark gray hallway and darker still room that lay beyond. Nothing could be seen stirring from that vantage, but all hope that he was alone in the suite had utterly evaporated. Tightening his gut and wiping his right hand on his boxers before re-gripping the cool hard bookend, Liam eased the door fully open and strained his eyes on the hallway’s aperture into the rest of the suite. ‘Fortune favors the bold,’ he thought to himself as he felt his feet begin to pump, grimacing mouth holding back his breath, a levy struggling against a flash flood. As the short hallway whizzed jarringly by, against the dim sitting room ahead an inky profile swung suddenly out from the left-hand wall.

“Oh, shit!” was all the gravelly voiced silhouette was able to blurt out before Liam hit him full tilt. Wrenching the body towards his own with his free left hand, Liam felt his forehead make contact with the bridge of the strangers nose, and as the intruder reeled back under the initial blow a vicious roundhouse swing with the bookend dropped the thin-framed figure to the floor with a perfunctory thud.

His shoulders heaving, blinking fiercely in the aftermath of the encounter, Liam spotted a wicked looking black Beretta Px4 on the floor near the body. Quickly stepping towards it and toeing it out of arms reach, Liam gingerly skirted the prone figure to be able to pick the pistol up himself. The body on the floor lay still, looking almost comical face down with limbs akimbo. “Squashed spider!” Liam wanted to guess, but there were no other contestants playing charades and the man on the floor didn’t seem able to either confirm or deny his postulation.

Keeping his eyes glued on the crumpled mass splayed on the floor, Liam backed up until his groping hand found the light switch, flooding the scene a warm light from the tattered orange light fixture hanging from the center of the room's ceiling. Taking a closer look, Liam could see that his interloper was beginning to ooze blood from his head and nose, slowly adding his own scarlet circlet to the already riotously stained carpet.

Liam should search the guy and then. . .

a) Jet, leaving the body there

b) Finish the job with his new gun

c) Tie the guy up in a chair and wait for him to come around

d) Take off immediately, forget even searching th guy

Yall Chose B

Chapter 2a

With anxiety dripping from his every pore, Liam inched his way around the listing bedroom door. His senses now almost fully divested of sleep’s dullness, every input was now being registered with laser precision. The cat yowling outside was out-clamored by a slamming dumpster while water dripped somewhere nearby and the toilet valve screamed at him as it clicked on momentarily to top of the perpetually leaking tank. The stale odor of years of tobacco imbibed by the walls around him combined with the delicate smell of the earliest morning, and both flirted with the slightest tinge of garlic. Trying not to think about the cute take-out girl from the Italian joint he’d ordered dinner from the night before, Liam began his stealthy descent towards the end of the short hallway. The suite he had been inhabiting for the last two weeks hung in a dull grey light, purgatory of the day, nearly familiar shapes indistinguishable in the small sitting room at the mouth of his vestibular avenue. Breaching the aperture of the hallway, still crouched and primed with the bookend at the ready, what had been at first a remnant of garlic odor swelled to an belligerent hurricane of olfactory sensation with overtones of cheap liquor and cheaper aftershave. Realizing too late the garlic scent had nothing to do with the leftover chicken parmesan in the sink, Liam turned to his left towards the impending onslaught. The last thing he saw as he wheeled around raising the bookend was the black steel dough nut of a silencer, followed by a Beretta Px4 both half obscuring a thin grizzled face sporting what would be the most and last unctuous sneer he ever saw.

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Well . . . that was quick. So, the question is now where we go from here. Suggestions?

Get Excited

I've decided to be bold and install a feature I've been thinking about doing for a while. Here's hoping that it goes better than the movie reviewing . . . right?! Anyway, I used to love reading Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was young and I thought it'd be a fun thing to try on a blog. The plan is to update the feature weekly, so vote on the course of action you think most prudent at the end of each post and we'll see how many times we can end up dead. And now . . .

La Concha

The adrenalin was already singing through his chest and river dancing on his bowels by the time Liam’s eyelids snapped open, beginning to register his murky surroundings. The garish radiance of red, blue and yellow neon intermittently lit the room with a wan rainbow through the worn curtains hanging over the solitary barred window. His horizontal view shifted as he raised himself from his sweat-drenched pillow and swiped his hand over his damp face. “Stupid brain,” he murmured to no one in particular, now rubbing sleep from his left eye and yawing cavernously. Stealing a glance at the digital clock glowing a verdant 2:17 he shook his head ruefully. “Always coming with these weird drea . . . ” but he trailed off as he heard over the usual nocturnal bustling of the city about him a soft but distinct thump and faint rustle come from down the small hallway which lead to his kitchenette, like the sound of a trench coated body grazing a grimy wall.

With every nerve in his body now aflame and extending what felt like inches past his skin, Liam gingerly disentangled himself from his matted bed clothes and snatched the carved wooden bookend from his bedside table as he eased himself silently onto the dingy low-pile carpet of his bedroom floor. Toeing aside a discarded t-shirt and stepping over a pair of black wingtips, he ever so gently padded towards his slightly ajar bedroom door. Creeping along the wall of his bedroom, making sure to keep the door between him and the hallways as much as possible, Liam nervously worked his grip on the bookend, finding its solid weight and sublime burnish somehow reassuring. Arriving at the door still wound tighter than a nun at a frat party, he thought he could hear nasally breaths being drawn steadily from somewhere on the other side of the flimsy piece of composite board now only inches from face, but over the whooshing of traffic and the buzzing of the neon sign outside his window it was impossible to tell for sure.

Liam should:

A) Charge down the hallway into the kitchenette

B) Attempt to sneak down the hallway

C) Stay put behind the door until daylight

D) Call out to see if anyone is there