Entropy Ch.1 - [con]

[Ruben Rooben Reuben]

©

Guzz squints, his eyes straining to adjust to the bright light of day, throbbing in their sockets with the deadened ache brought by little sleep and less sobriety. He tries to move his hands over his eyes, to rub the hangover down, but winces as tape and wire strain against his wrists, cutting furrows into his soft, brown flesh. Something doesn’t feel right to him, like he’s falling down, like he has been for some time.

His eyes finally adjust and he winks one shut, trying to get his bearings. Dust cakes his lap, occasionally swirling out from his jeans into small curls caught by a hot breeze. His head feels swollen, turgid, heavy with blood, booze and mucous. Sweat builds around his temple, quickly gathering into drops and rolling down the length of his sunburned face, hanging like stalactites from the stubble on his chin. His feet dangle just above the ground, boots swaying in small trails of dust. The ground is moving quickly from his heels up past his toes and on out of view, into infinity.

A high-pitched whine pierces the air; everything suddenly pitches up and backward. The ground beneath him grinds to a halt. Eddies of dust swallow his feet. His head snaps back, pulling his eyes up and into the sun. Dull daggers of pain jab into his sinuses and a grunt of agony presses through his cracked lips as his vision burns white, phantom dots swimming in his rolling head. A bead of sweat forms on his chin, trembles, and then plummets between his legs, through the settling dust. It drives into the stale ground and detonates from its epicenter, kicking a tiny ring of dust up and out. The dust ring plows back down, forcing a second wave of eruption as each following circle of dust stirs up another, quickly forming a wreath around a rising stream of powder and moisture which snakes up into the air and then flattens out into a swollen dome.

Guzz’s head bobs in place, pain ebbing away. A pair of hiking boots, patched with dried mud, step into the corner of his recovering vision. He pushes his chin out, raising his head only slightly. Someone stands over him and although the sunlight obscures most detail, it is obvious that it’s a woman. She pushes a strand of raven hair out of her eyes, up and back into her scratched, faded riding helmet.
“Now don’t wander far.� Turning and walking away, her dusty cargo pants and army jacket rustle as they negotiate with the sway of her curves, duds obviously intended to be worn by someone with fewer moving parts.
Guzz instinctively curses at her waving back, although he still isn’t sure why. The horizon in front of him is a bleached flat of dirt stretching in all directions, a radiated oblivion of the occasional cluster of small rocks and tufts of brown, limp grass. He looks down again and sees that he is seated on a wheeled chair, the cushion a sponge full of dust and grime. Beyond the chair is a chrome bumper, dented and warped with impact, the chair itself propped against it, perched at an angle on the rear fender of a car. A rusty chain runs from under the chair and wraps around the underbelly of the car, locked around its spare tire frame. Strands of wire wrap around the chair’s back, then around Guzz’s wrists, then to either end of the fender. Guzz strains his arms again, feeling only the tape and wire threatening to cut into his already chafed wrists; he feels his arms secured against the sides of the chair’s back cushion. Hot wind sweeps across his face, whisking away perspiration only to draw more out. Footsteps.

Guzz brings his head back up. The woman is coming back, now carrying a crumpled box that looks as if something had squashed its center. A red cross is printed on one side of the box, faded almost beyond recognition. Inside Guzz sees all the trappings of a first aid kit rattling around from side to side, swaying in unison with the woman’s slow stride as she brings it to the car.

“Who--,� Guzz’s voice gives out. His throat feels like a dried gourd. The woman passes him and throws the box into the backseat of the car, narrowly missing the collapsed fabric of the convertible top. Guzz’s parched tongue sticks to his withered lips. “Who are y-you?�
The woman rummages through the box and pockets a fistful of gauze. She picks out a stimpak and steps back. The syringe head of the stim is intact but the vial is cracked; the dried red liquid within gums up a fracture in the plastic tube. She tosses it to the ground and continues rummaging through the box.

Guzz can feel the blood pressure swelling his lips out, his eyes bulging. He again catches sight of the hiking boots. The woman stands in front of him, mere inches from his face. He looks up as far as he can but the chair’s angle keeps him humbled, his face leveled with her toned midriff. Her arms are up, causing the white undershirt beneath the army jacket to tug upward. A fraction of a dark tattoo juts out from the top of her pants.
“Who...?� Guzz wheezes. The undershirt comes back down and with it the arms. One hand holds a spent stimpak, the other swings down empty. A trail of the sticky red substance trickles from her shoulder, staining the length of her jacket’s sleeve. Guzz’s breathing becomes erratic as the fluid gathers into fat, wet droplets on her fingertips. His eyes widen as he strains against the chair, stretching his neck toward her. The woman takes a pace backward and raises her hand above Guzz’s blistered head. A whimper seeps out of his throat as his wild eyes follow the hand up, away and back into the sun. The blinding light is thrown into uneven slats by the shade of her fingers, each one stabbed through the sun, turning the droplets into five crimson prisms.

[Ruben Rooben Reuben]

I figured it'd work best if I broke this thing up a bit. I forgot how annoying it is to click on a fic and find that reading it will give you hemerrhoids. Let me know.

[Ruben Rooben Reuben]

Irrelevant posting is the tool of the devil.
















"Irrelevant posting" is a redundant statement. Just so you know.

[Ruben Rooben Reuben]

(this is from a later part of Entropy. Figured I'd throw it down. Choo think?)



. “Whatever they’re going to pay you,� Guzz says, turning his head to one side to keep sight of the woman, “I’ll get you more.�
. The woman tightens the strands of wire around his wrists. “More than the Big Man?� she says. “Doubt it. Men with money pay for bounties, not become them.�
. Guzz hears the static pull of tape torn from a roll shortly before the woman begins wrapping the thick gray strap around his wrists. The awful noise bounces off the walls, echoing around the small cave. Lumps of clay stick out from the walls, still slightly moist in the shade and the cool morning air. Outside the cave entrance, some dozen-sloped feet away and upward, the dark blue sky is only beginning to peel away, strands of red and orange fuzz peek over the jowls of the cave mouth.
. “Look,� Guzz pleads, “Why are you doing this?! You can’t just leave me here!�
. “Someone will come for you soon enough.� The woman yanks the roll of tape, severing the sticky strap. She thumbs the tail end of the strap down onto the one of the balls of tape now encasing Guzz’s fists, looking like two shellacked beehives. She pushes at the back of his feet, testing the chain running around them and then between and around his wrists. Clean hog-tied.
. Guzz’s mind spins. They had to have passed at least fifty other tunnels exactly like this one. The hillside was practically a sponge, riddled with hundreds of burrows, tunnels and small caves.
. “How the hell will they find me?� he asks.
. “I’m guessing that you haven’t washed in a few weeks. More than likely they’ll just follow their noses.�
. The woman stands and gives the chair to which he is still strapped a heavy kick. The chair rattles in place but none of the bindings budge. She retrieves the tape roll and a coil of wire and presses around the chair, trying to keep her hair from smearing across the muddy cave walls. Panicked, Guzz can only watch her back wave as she recedes up and away; her heavy boots leave perfect tracks in the moist floor.
. “You can’t do this to me! I don’t even know why anybody would want me!�
. The woman bats at the knees of her mud-stained cargo pants. “Maybe because you’re so charming?�
. The orange tint of the morning sky transforms her body into a silhouette at the mouth of the cave. Guzz squints against the gathering light.
. “What if an animal gets in here?! What am I supposed to do then?�
The woman stops just outside the cave and turns. The cool morning breeze coaxes a strand of hair out from behind her ear and sends it playing across her face. She unrolls the sleeves of her undershirt, stretching her arms and back into an arresting arch, finally able to stand straight out from the cave.
. “Well don’t die, if that’s what you’re thinking,� she says. “Not yet anyway.�

E

. Doc Morbid, a tall man with dark hair graying at the sides, picks up a small tray of surgical instruments. He takes them to the operating room’s washtub: a dented bedpan. Halogen tubes flicker overhead, hardly strong enough to push light into the dank corners of the windowless OR. The air in the room is musty and thick. The floor and walls are covered in a thin sheet of moisture as the OR is actually below ground level. An iron ladder leading to the lobby above is riveted to the far wall. Morbid splashes water across the tray. One at a time, he picks up each instrument and wipes it across his white lab jacket. Crimson streaks droop and stain the fabric.
. A wheeled operating table, which often doubled as a gurney, is in the middle of the room. A thin man is sitting on the table, his legs dangling in the air. The sneakers on his feet are torn and a few sizes too small, in contrast to the rest of his clothes which seem to hang off of his small frame. His jeans are faded and his dark, buttoned shirt sits off-center on his narrow shoulders. A patch sewn above the breast pocket reads: “Lou.�
. “Leave this dressing on for the next couple of days,� he says to a patient sitting on the operating table. The patient holds his left hand in his lap; it is bundled in a thick ball of gauze and tape. “Four or five, I guess. After that, unwrap it and rinse.�
. “Rinse?� Louie says. “You expect me to rinse with the juice they got flowing through here? You’re off your friggin’ rocker, Doc.� He winces as pain slices up his arm. “I might as well let everyone in town take a dump on it.�
. Louie scratches his nose with his good hand. His wiry stature and dark, sleek hair make his sharp features seem all the more rodent-like in the dim room. He shifts uncomfortably; as he does his bony shoulders can be seen through his brown, long-sleeved button-up shirt.
. Morbid turns to a large bookcase against the wall. The bookcase is filled with small cardboard boxes, all of them labeled after surgical instruments and various medications. On the wall next to the bookcase, hanging from nails, are the larger, more serrated instruments. He keeps one scalpel out and turns to Louie.
. “Since when did you get picky?� he asks.
. “Since it involved a big friggin’ wound and all the germs in the friggin’ world, what do you think?�
. “I think you need to be more careful.�
. “Well, how about something for the pain?�
. Morbid shrugs. “Try the bar.�
. “Doctor’s orders? Can do.�
. Morbid takes a small plastic bag from a pocket at tosses it to Louie. He reacts without thinking and howls as the bag smacks against his bandaged hand.
. “Damn it, Doc! Watch where you - - � he winces. “Damn it!� Louie looks at the bag. It contains several green spears of a plant. Morbid shaves his fingernails with the scalpel.
. “Use that instead of water,� he says.
. Louie shrugs. “I never took you for one of them herbal types, Doc. Hugged a tree lately?�
. “Just pictures of them. That’s aloe. It’ll clean you up in a lot of ways the water here won’t. Think of it as mother nature’s cure-all ointment.�
. Louie stands from the table and frowns at the bag. “Alright. How much for it?�
. Morbid doesn’t look up from his nails. “Another forty caps.�
. Louie laughs. “Yeah right. Aloe? No. A load? You betcha!� He drops the bag onto the operating table and makes for the ladder hatch. “I’ll just keep it clean, thanks.�
. “You, clean?� Morbid chuckles. “That’ll be the day.� Louie eases up the ladder, trying to avoid using his hand on the rungs.
. “Yeah well, you never know, right? Thanks for the scratch-job, Doc. If I find some graffiti on the wall around the building I’ll let you know that I found your diploma.�
. Morbid grins and looks up after him. “Oh, and Louie?�
. “Yeah?�
. “If you can’t get too far without this stuff, just head back down and buy it.� He flexes his hand and wiggles his fingers in the air. “Only fifty caps.�
. “Hey, up yours, Doc.� Louie wraps his left arm around a rung. He extends his right hand at Morbid and flips him off with the only middle finger he has left.