The Green Lighting of God

[East Coast Hustle]

Chapter One

10:17 pm.

Time for something to happen.

The mean-faced bartender with the wart on his right cheek delivered another over-priced (and over-warm) draft beer. My fourth drink in this human petri dish of a tavern, in half as many hours. I took a swig to clean the film of the place's stench from the inside of my mouth, leaned back in my barstool, and lit up a cigarette.

Just waiting for the inevitable now.

10:20 pm.

"Hey asshole! I already told you you can't fuckin' smoke in here!"

This from the fat bouncer with acne around his neckline. He enjoys his job. You know the type.

"You need me to tell you again, smartguy?"

I take a big drag off the cigarette and blow it towards him. As expected, he begins to lumber over towards me.

10:21 pm.

The inevitable has arrived right on schedule.

Another drag. If I've done this right, this should be the last one that's completely tobacco. The bouncer is halfway to me. He's chosen to waste a perfectly useful hand by using it to hold a perfectly useless blackjack. This should be easy.

If, of course, this sort of work can be said to be "easy".

A huge drag as he reaches me. I hold it in for a few seconds, let him get close, and blow it right in his face. He gets enough of it in his face for it to work its magic. It's admittedly a bit of a gamble, but the odds are in my favor.

Not that many people are trained to be able to maintain their focus and fight on PCP. The bouncer coughs twice and staggers back.

"What the fuck?"

Things are going to start happening very fast now. I have just enough time to almost feel sorry for the people in here who aren't really involved, but who are going to die just the same.

Just enough time to remember that in a place like this, everyone is involved.

I hit the rim of the pintglass against the bar. Holding the jagged broken base in my left hand, I slam it straight into the bouncer's right eye. Before he can even scream, I've pulled down hard enough to drag the glass across his face to his left cheek, pretty much removing his nose.

It's an aesthetic improvement, really.

As I drop the bouncer, mangled and screaming, to the puke-crusted floor of the barroom, my right hand already has the first gun in its grip. My right hand has just shot the bartender in his right shoulder. in his gut. in his groin. left knee. left hand. He'll live long enough to answer my feverishly shouted questions, in a moment.

Left hand has a gun now, too. I'm over the bar. Last 3 shots in the right-hand gun go to the first two people in the room who try to pull heat. Reload?

uh-oh.

There's a sawed-off shotgun under the bar.


A whole lot of people are about to die very quickly now. The lab-engineered chemical compound I just smoked (based on a mix of PCP and methamphetamine) has me firmly planted in Matrix-vision Land, taking my time to efficiently slaughter my targets, all of whom look as though they have been slowed down to one-eighth speed, like a bad dub recording.

I must look like a God to them.

This is almost too easy.

If, of course, this sort of work can be said to be "easy".

It's almost charming, how quickly and savagely my employers will abandon the very concepts they believe in enough to wage eternal war over, in the name of advancing the very cause they subvert by employing people like me. I used to wonder what drives them, but as I've come to know them a little better, I've realized how truly unfathomable their motives are.

10:23 pm.

The only two living people in the place are me and the bartender. He's on the floor, clutching his ruined genitals in his ruined left hand.

Time for a friendly little chat.

[Payne]

Sounds good, man.

Looking forward to the next installment.

[Cramulus]

at first I was like, don't have time to read this right now

then I was like, hold on then, of course I'll read it

and then I was like, MAN I am glad I read that



Nice piece, ECH. Looking forward to chapter 2

[Triple Zero]

cool!

[Anch]

That was GREAT!

[LMNO]

Hell, yeah.  Better not waith months between chapters like some spags do...





Also,
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Nick-Cave/O-Malley-s-Bar.html

[Rev. St. Syn, KSC (Ret.)]

ECH, that was HAWT! And fuckin' good to see ya, man.

Plaes to be the first individual to receive...







...

[East Coast Hustle]

Syn!

that shit is gangster as fuck-all.

[hooplala]

Holy shit, ECH... fucking YES.