Zombies and Shit (44 page)

Even though Scavy has just met Junko, he considers her his friend, just as much a friend as Gogo or Brick. She’s earned his respect, proved herself to be one tough chick, and Scavy thinks of himself as a brother to anyone he respects. That’s why he’s willing to do this for her. Plus, he’s been wanting to use his sniper rifle on some asshole ever since he got the thing.

On the fifth floor of the apartment complex, Scavy takes his position. Heinz has gotten a bit further ahead than the punk had expected, but not nearly far enough ahead to get out of his range. A camera ball floats over Scavy’s shoulder, another is filming Heinz. Scavy swats the camera ball away like a fly as it gets too close to his face. When he looks into the scope of his sniper rifle, it’s out of focus. He adjusts the scope, but only seems to blur his vision even more.

“Fuck!” Scavy says, trying to figure out his aim.

Meanwhile, Heinz gets further away. If Scavy doesn’t figure it out soon the nazi will be too far out of range, then Junko and the hippy will have to deal with him on their own. Scavy continues working on the scope, but just can’t get it focused right.

“Damn son of a bitch!” he says, slamming his fist down on the rifle.

A man steps out of the intersection and blocks Heinz’s way. Scavy recognizes the man. It is Laurence, the vagrant who had handed out the bags back at the hotel. Only, the guy looks a lot different now. His body is made of gold-plated steel, glimmering in the mid-morning sunlight.

Laurence stands there, in Heinz’s way, his hands on his hips.

“Shooting women in the back as they’re running away,” Laurence yells at the nazi. “The T-2000 don’t think that’s very friendly behavior.”

Heinz stops his pursuit, staring at the golden metal man with a confused expression. The dog heads on his hands snap and snarl in Mr. T’s direction.

“Mr. T’s gonna have to teach you a lesson in manners,” then he punches his metal fist into the palm of his other hand.

Heinz opens fire on Mr. T, but the bullets just ricochet off the cyborg’s chest. Mr. T roars as he rips off a chunk of the building next to him, then lifts it over his head. The piece of brick wall is the size of a dumpster.

“Here’s a gift for you,” Laurence says, tossing the enormous piece of wall at the nazi. “Courtesy of Mr. T.”

Heinz ducks out of the way and the chunk of debris explodes against the cement wall behind him. Then he continues firing. Scavy adjusts the scope, not sure whether Laurence is on his side or if he’s got to shoot down the both of them. He’s able to see Laurence through the glass, letting it out just a bit to zoom off of his chest.

Heinz’s Gatling gun runs out of ammo, so he drops the mechjaw into his pack and raises his left arm. The mechjaw on his left arm isn’t connected to a Gatling gun. It’s connected to a rocket launcher. Heinz squeeze’s the dog’s brain and the rocket shoots from his fist. It hits Mr. T square in the chest and the enormous cyborg flies back, through a wall, into an old bank building. The explosion creates an avalanche, and three stories of the building cave in on top of the T-2000.

“Fuck…” Scavy says, as he witnesses the nazi take down the cyborg. He wonders if going up against Heinz is such a good idea. If a bulletproof Mr. T with a robot body isn’t strong enough to defeat him how does Scavy have a chance?

Heinz waits for the dust to settle, to make sure the T-2000 will not be getting up again. Once he is satisfied, he turns to the direction Junko was headed for and continues on his hunt.

Scavy lifts the sniper rifle to his shoulder and peers through the scope, aiming for the gas canisters on the nazi’s back. The aim is dead center. Scavy knows that he only has one shot at this. If he misses he’s dead. He takes a deep breath.

When Scavy pulls the trigger, the kickback slams his shoulder hard, jerking back his arm. The bullet hits the street in front of Heinz, missing by over five feet.

“Damn it,” Scavy says, rubbing his bruised shoulder.

Heinz turns around, slowly, and looks up at Scavy. Then he aims his mechjaw rocket launcher at the window and fires.

When Scavy caught up to Domino and the other Diamonds who raped Gogo, they were doing Waste in the back of a broken down van. He crept up alongside the graffiti-coated vehicle, and heard Domino’s low grunting voice and laughter coming from the other four in his crew.

“Smell my finger,” he could hear Domino say. “I still got the scent of her sweet cunt on me.”

“Get that out of my face,” another said. “That shit is rank.”

The others laughed.

Their conversation only pissed Scavy off more. He gripped his crowbar tightly, fantasizing about how it will feel to bash Domino’s face in with it.

When the first of them stepped out of the van to take a leak, Scavy broke his kneecap with the crowbar. The guy fell face-first into the street.

“What the fuck?” Domino said.

Scavy jumped in the back of the van and smashed the closest asshole in the mouth. Blood and teeth splashed across the backseat. Then he lowered the crowbar into another’s forehead, knocking him out with a loud metal
clunk
. Scavy leapt out of the back of the van before the other two could grab him.

Domino pulled out his switchblade and came out of the van after him. As the knife darted toward his throat, Scavy swung the crowbar. It made contact with Domino’s knife-hand, breaking three of his knuckles. The switchblade flew across the street.

The other punk grabbed Scavy from behind, but quickly found a crowbar in his eye. Scavy turned around and beat him repeatedly, smashing the crowbar against his face, his chest, and his arms that waved out for mercy. When Scavy looked back, Domino was running away. His four men were either out cold or writhing in pain.

“You’re dead, asshole,” Domino yelled back at Scavy from the far end of the street. “Your whole crew is dead.”

The punk lying in the street with a dislocated kneecap went for a gun in his coat. When Scavy saw the gun pointed at him, he clicked his heels together, triggering a switchblade that emerged from the toe of his right boot. With his boot-knife, he kicked the punk in the stomach five times, stabbing him in his guts, until the bloody piece of shit dropped his gun.

Then Scavy picked up the pistol and shot the other three until they stopped moving.

Heinz’ rocket hits the wall below Scavy’s window, taking out the front of the building. The blast knocks Scavy back across the room. When he gets to his feet, Scavy can hardly balance himself. There’s a piercing ring in his ear and the taste of blood leaking from the roof of his mouth. He retrieves his rifle and staggers back to the window. He doesn’t realize his face is charred black, nor does he realize a piece of debris has impaled his side.

The flames in the burning window cover his view of Heinz, but Scavy aims the rifle through the smoke and fires again. The bullet is several feet off target.

Out of rockets, Heinz tosses the dog head and pulls out his flame thrower. He approaches the entrance to Scavy’s building. Riding the adrenalin of being blown off of his feet, Scavy keeps firing. He gets off two more rounds, but shooting vertically at a moving target isn’t a manageable task for a poor shot with a mortal wound. Heinz enters the building unscathed.

The camera ball filming Heinz floats in the doorway below Scavy, hovering in one place as it zooms in on the nazi’s back. Scavy’s bloody teeth open in a smile as he puts his eye in the scope. He aims directly at the center of the camera ball, holds his breath, then fires.

The explosion takes out the entire block, blowing out the first floor of the apartment building, as well as the first floors of every building on the block. Scavy jumps back and dives over a bed, as the flames rise into the air and engulf room. When the air is clear, Scavy lifts his head and laughs.

“Checkmate, motherfucker!” he cries.

Most people assume Scavy is as dumb as a rock, but he’s actually a lot smarter than he looks. Although uneducated, he’s got a natural intelligence. He’s quick-thinking, clever, and a born strategist. Chess was a game he loved to play, and he never lost a game in his life.

When Brick met up with Scavy and saw the four dead bodies of Domino’s men lying in the back of the van, Scavy was already working on a plan.

“Oh, shit,” Brick said, checking for a pulse on any of the fallen gang members. “Why the hell did you have to kill them?”

“I got a little carried away,” Scavy said. “They pissed me off.”

“Do you know what that means? Domino isn’t just going to let you get away with this.” Brick looked around, making sure the street was clear. “We have to go to war now. With the fucking Diamonds of all gangs!”

“They asked for it. If they would have left Gogo alone this never would have happened.”

“Gogo would have been fine,” Brick said. “She’s a fucking whore.”

Scavy got into Brick’s face. “How can you say that? She’s your girlfriend.”

“I know it’s bullshit what happened to her,” Brick said. “But you’re going to end up getting all of us killed.”

“Not if we get them before they get us,” Scavy said.

“Are you kidding? They outnumber us twenty to one
and
they have more firepower. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“It doesn’t matter how big their gang is,” Scavy said. “We just have to get clever. Outsmart them.”

Brick shook his head. Scavy had never seen the big guy so worried. The reason Scavy became friends with him in the first place was because the guy never backed down even when the odds were against him.

“Trust me,” Scavy told Brick, placing a hand on his shoulder. Then Brick grunted and gave him a nod. “Help me take their jackets off. I have a plan.”

The plan was simple. Although the Diamonds were the biggest street gang in Copper, they were not the top dogs in the quadrant. The local drug lord, Tim Lion, had a much more powerful crew behind him. Domino was a mere cockroach in comparison to Tim Lion. So Scavy, Brick, and a couple of their friends decided to dress up as members of the Diamonds gang using the jackets they took off of the dead bodies of Domino’s friends. Then they robbed a drug shipment that was headed into Silver. Let everyone see the Diamonds jackets they wore. Then they dropped off the drugs on the porch of one of the Diamonds’ hangouts.

When Tim Lion got wind of what the Diamonds had done, he sent his men after Domino. With the drugs in his backyard and all of the witnesses of the robbery, Domino had little chance of proving his innocence to the drug lord. Scavy had fucked him good.