Good and Evil : Freeland - Part Two (9781628547375) Read online

  Good and Evil: Part Two

  Copyright © 2013 by William Pulver. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

  The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Tate Publishing, LLC.

  Published by Tate Publishing & Enterprises, LLC

  127 E. Trade Center Terrace | Mustang, Oklahoma 73064 USA

  1.888.361.9473 | www.tatepublishing.com

  Tate Publishing is committed to excellence in the publishing industry. The company reflects the philosophy established by the founders, based on Psalm 68:11,

  “The Lord gave the word and great was the company of those who published it.”

  Book design copyright © 2013 by Tate Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Lindsay Behrens

  Interior design by Mary Jean Archival

  Published in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-62854-737-5

  1. Fiction/ Christian/ General

  2. Fiction / Science Fiction / General

  13.06.19

  Chapter 1

  Drive-Snag-Drag-by

  Treach Zarnig was the first person to make it out of the Desert Oven alive! The coy and wily Treach somehow made it back to the streets of Rumor Mill. For how long, he hadn’t a clue. His mistakes had landed him back in a facility. Not DSOH, by any means, but still a facility that would make him become a sitting duck. An easy target for the magistrate to find him. That is if they were looking. Time was against him. So was everyone, he thought. Paranoia was confusing him about his so called freedom.

  Treach’s bandages were removed by Dr. Carvinseal as the blood clots were adequately starting to form. A seeping ooze of puss flowed freely through the crusty ravine of scabs. Treach, Brody’s previous roommate, tensed viciously while the doctor re-routed a new stretch of gauze.

  A trickle of sweat rolled down his childishly handsome, pitch-black face as tears swelled in his midnight black eyes. He brushed the pain away with a swipe of scabby hands that began bleeding from the slight friction. No one was ever to know he held fear, but this last shootout was the closest to death he had ever come. For the past seven years, he held the position of archduke, the highest rank any youngster could attain beneath the nobility of adult gang leader, A. Spade, of the Mocey Heights Ravens.

  On a blurry night in east-central Rumor Mill, a superfluous parade of stolen and restored vintage vehicles rolled down the dimly lit stretch of Fellen Main to the Raven hangout. Several pin-stickers—the young, greenhorn baby gangsters just earning their respect—were out and about, sent to scout for rival Trench Vipers who recently had been stirring the majority of mischief on that side of the magnetic freeway.

  Treach had been out all day, hanging low in the suburban square of Leonard’s Tombtome, an excavation of long ago that never received Leonard, nor anyone else, but was now turned into a cement mini-park of idle gargoyle statues and frozen warriors on horseback. Within the barriers of this gangster pad was also inscribed the Ravens motto, inherited from this dark, shadowy graveyard of blood and cement. The motto:

  To believe you are dead is the world turned over. To believe you are alive is to summon up your arms and fight to gain strength, because the only power in the future is that of mind. It is much easier to speak of soul than it is to give it in battle. Rather, how often do you stand up a man in death?

  Every police precinct from Conifer Island to Rumor Mill has heard this imparted upon questioning. Each gang member would exchange it with the old-world Fifth Amendment. They would never squeal. Several have gone to their death with this wrapped humbly in their arms. This motto was their tranquility. A place in their corrupted minds and hearts where some kind of peace existed. Although, it was nothing more than a fatal disease. Known better as their yearn for power. This powerful disease would eventually take the majority of them to their deathbeds.

  Mag Trigger, the avarice spade of the Trench Vipers, was armed with duo fully automatic metal penetrating weapons: one, a .357, and the other a recently stolen .38 Gregor Swindole pistol with ivory whale tusk on the handle. Several funnel Uzis and shore glocks, fifty-five round clips equipped to each, were crammed into the trunk and under the seats of Mag’s 1927 cradle-robber blue Gard Rough Boy Roadster he had heisted from Merlin’s Old-Time Auto, on the outskirts of Rumor Mill. A moist rain had dampened the streets as he spit rubber in all directions after squealing the over-sized tires on the East Side’s rough cobblestone roads. The biggest of ill-worked potholes were evaded as he tore off in seek of revenge, toward Fellen Main.

  Leonard’s Square was going to see its last fellowship of warranted gangsters. The two sides were to fight until death on this final occasion. Nostradama sat silently in wait of several new denizens.

  One of the female Trench Vipers, Mag’s sister, had been raped, slashed, strangled, and left to rot in the slow currents of the mile-wide Shord’s Knuckle River, at the mouth of Clue Valley Canyon. It didn’t matter the season, the river was always hot from the underlying mineral deposits and springs. There was no chance for the girl’s body to be retrieved for proper burial because of the quickened decay cycle of the bubbling waters.

  Meanwhile, back at the cement graveyard, Treach, armed with the .38 Gregor Swindole whale-ivory-handled pistol tucked into his baggy pants, was conversing in a humble, serious tone with his leader, A. Spade Down. With an eye toward strategy, each pin sticker was sent to the front line after having been armed with heavy artillery in the form of combat weaponry. The commencement of the midnight raid was in their green hands.

  “A. Spade, what to do? We gots monkey ass coming down on us tonight. You know dis is it. No mo’ T Vipers. They be getting theirs all night long. We gots to put the cap in that ass before dey jump us.”

  A. Spade’s face was lined with slashing scars, badges of honor from his previous conquered fights. He spoke with a serious look in his probing black eyes, “Go low, Smoke. Yo’ time is near. You gots to check yo’self before you wreck yo’self. Know what I’m sayin’, Killa! We stick together tonight, and all’ll be good. Now we gonna sit in hide until dose punk bitches show up to see dey own funeral. Dey betta recognize, my brother, or else dey go down witout fight. Dey peace be coming.”

  Treach treaded through the cement casts of miniature statues hunching over as he neared the gates of this one entrance gang park. On this cloudless night, the brightness of the full eve star was all he had to help him bring his surroundings into focus. Deep shadows painted an eerie scene to the windswept night. The overhead trees rustled, yet they seemed to be patiently holding back in wait of each gangster’s fury.

  The wind picked up, rattling the loose latches of the gates against the iron barred entrance. The noise was a bizarre calling for all to get ready to defend themselves. Each Raven bit down harder on clenched teeth as the chilling shutters of candid names rolled through the night. One at a time, the Trench Vipers called out their gang name. Nobility entreated at every finish.

  Treach yelled out his name, spitting emphasis on his tribe of Mocey Heights, the legendary gang on the
East Side, even though he was from a middle class West Side neighborhood. Before Treach could finish, a barrage of serpentine bullets slithered through the listless air, striking all around his black body. He swiftly dropped to the ground and rolled to the nearest tomb. Once in ambush, he shot six times and then reloaded a slim-line domestic gat sitting nearby in the frozen hand of one of his dead gangster brothers. He tapped the clip against the vertical grave marker and slammed it into its chamber with tremulous hands. The emptied .38 was forced down his pants again.

  Inside, Treach had to fight not to pee his pants. A feeling of grave fear was overcome by his malice. The black of night was lit up as he stood and set forth a return of artillery fire. The surroundings lit up in shadows to cast ambivalence away from his stand.

  In an encircling ring, each Trenchy sent an onslaught of bullets in a rain of their own. Many bodies blanketed the Tombtome gateway to hell. Rivers of blood seeped from friend and foe to gel the cracks of ground split by hatred. In this garden, the devil could dance eternally by the grace of his children choosing to follow their misdeeds. An incorrigible lust of retaliation sent the gangsters quickly to their fate. Finally, Nostradama was welcoming them all.

  A. Spade Down crawled in a virile slither to his young, militant pin-stickers who were huddled behind the largest of statues, Leonard Mocey. A trail of warm blood followed behind. In a fading manner, he looked up to Virgil (V) Gates, the oldest youngster, and called him into leadership by offering his one-carat gold choker. Death was quickly calling A. Spade. V Gates looked expressionless at the dying man, and with one hand clenched firmly around the handle of a bolt thrower forty-four mag, he squeezed the trigger and sent A. Spade to his fate. His heart stopped beating upon impact.

  A sense of mourning cast the five surrounding pin-stickers into a deep trance of revenge. They arose from a kneel and pushed their anger into the dark by volleying several rounds to rid what was left of the living rivals. Their aim was true. The return fire exhausted as the war ended. Everyone was dead, except Treach and the alter king of the Trench Vipers. Mag Trigger sprinted through a hollow tunnel, dark as a stormy sea, and located the roadster. Treach was two steps behind.

  The tires screamed, suddenly ending the solace of silence this night had been finally rewarded. In disgust, Mag T shouted out, “Trench Vipers, we are free!” He looked in the rear view mirror to check for blood or gunshot holes in his forehead, as Treach was observed standing on the ‘27 Gard’s rear bumper. Slamming on the brakes, Mag Trigger hurriedly sprang out of the vehicle and was swiftly at Treach’s feet. He had been thrown some twenty feet ahead at sixty miles-per-hour; the road rash was worse than any Mag Trigger had ever seen.

  A mirage of fishtail lights sprang forth as mobile neon spread vacuously down the streets. Somewhere in the middle of the night, a sole shot was heard, followed by a hollow thud. Standing amidst a spiritless shadow, a spring of blood rolled aimlessly from Mag Trigger’s forehead, as his vision slowly dissipated… along with his life. To the ground he fell. He had finally reached the piths of Nostradama. Treach merely accepted the weight of his enemy’s body, not having any strength to push him away.

  The lights got brighter, and soon an accompaniment of sirens could be heard. Back at the battle site, a squad of lunar medics was searching through the bodily remains of the evening’s warfare. The bodies located, each were black-bagged and heaved into the stretched hearses of Mocey Heights Memorial Hospice. Pride, as their vice, secured them where they lay in judgment, nowhere close to where they could have gone if they had simply chosen the right: heaven.

  Thirteen trash barrels were set afire. The ground retrieved each mortal going into them. The remains gave light to the next generation. Hate is a boomerang, just waiting to be thrown into the windy night. Even if it revolves only as guilt, the endless ensuing pain is worse than death, by any right.

  To conclude the trauma Treach was now in, a light-colored Midnight Angel stood aloft, as if in a hover, peering down at the tragedy-stricken child. Midnight Angels were a group of ex-gangsters sent by trust to cease the way of life they now knew to be wrong. As stewards, they had the determination and respect to resurrect many a confused child.

  Treach laid motionless, feet and arms sprawled toward the ground. It seemed he was attempting to gather himself to stand, but hadn’t the strength. The cream-complexioned Midnight Angel stooped down and rolled the dead gang leader off the injured Treach. The mortal savior continued to assist the child. While doing so, he witnessed an absurdity of devastation.

  Treach’s black trench coat had been torn in several places, openly displaying his mid-section. A roving spotlight framed the rawness of his fright, while the night pushed it away over and over as the light swung back and forth. The Midnight Angel bent down on one knee and graced the child with a syringe of anesthetics. With a whimper, Treach eased into sleep.

  During the near-death-experience, he envisioned a clan of shiny-eyed people that were, in mass, victims of prior warfare. They were sorting through to find the gang members who were guilty of Nostradamal law. This was Satan’s list of fallen souls and the infractions they committed to get them sent to Nostradama. Suicidal and homicidal thoughts were the most abundant. These people were not ordinary. They could blind with the lights of their eyes. They were an underground society, sent to clean up the soulful remains of those who gave up during their second chance of restoring righteousness. Paradise lost, a treasure trove of lost souls, some greater than man, who were kept for the building of an empire that would one day attempt to take over this intermediary, cloned planet, Trendago.

  A team of lunar medics calmly hoisted Treach’s placid figure into an ambupatrolance, then set off on the two-hour trek to Conifer Island. This was a near code blue, the only survivor of the night.

  The trip was a long one, and several perturbations arose. First of all, the ambupatrolance ran out of gel ethanol twenty miles from departure. The driver, a newly hired funeral director/ambupatrolance operator, was a hyper fellow; more times than not, he would forget things by over-thinking. To give credit to this fact, he once sewed a pair of forceps into the abdomen of a cadaver. Now on probation, his record was not improving. Nevertheless, a second first aid kit on wheels was swapped. On the way, in the middle of the ebony stretch of magnetic freeway, Treach’s stretcher folded in half, awakening him from his dreary nap. He became aware of a burning sensation ripping at his stomach. The fire was a hell-pain more excruciating than he had ever felt, even more painful than his memory of being carved open when the doctor gave too low a dosage of Diazepam during an on-site operation to remove a bullet from his clavicle. Treach went into shock upon contacting the dry pavement. Remorse was the only comfort with which he could acquaint.

  The new ambupatrolance was an older model and hadn’t the technology of the first. Its rear lift ramp was a manual crankshaft that took three people to conquer. There was only one man and one woman EMT aboard, after the other three had been called away on a different duty, so they had to rig the stretcher with straps tied to the front seat belts as pulleys. Both lifted the head of the stretcher in order to rest the front wheels on the back of the serrated, stainless-steel floor of the cargo bumper. Afterward, they sternly tugged on the straps as the cot rolled slowly in from the retraction of the safety belt rollers. The scheme worked. One of the diligent workers climbed up front of the transporter as the other closed the back doors and sat down to monitor Treach’s progress. The calamity was more a nuisance, but the life of a gang member is always as dark as the weakness he was feeling this night. If this is what death is like, he wished repentance could be spoken while he still had the chance. The vile blah-black valleys of a freezing cold Nostradama couldn’t have brought on this horrible a feeling.

  Now in daylight, Treach looked up at the porous wafers of ceiling tiles and devised a new strategy to attain nobility. Laying low was the only hope for survival while cooped up in hospital care.


  “Is my boyfriend going to be all right? Is his stomach okay?” Lacey, Treach’s dense-minded girlfriend, stood cheerfully behind the doctor as she admired his tactical work. Not too many people were very fond of the Lamish, for they were a rare breed of socialites from some far away land. Only few, if any more, had survived the Great Fire.

  Lacey’s furnace red hair seemed afire and sharply contrasted with her steely gray complexion. She was a transfusion from birth, separated from her twin, having been expelled by test tube labor and introduced into society a bastard mishap. Evolution created a freak show. This young Silverback was the second voice of Treach.

  Treach looked through the doctor, through his ravenous pain, and through self-propelled insight to reveal his inner thoughts and remorse. Two droplets of karma-induced puddles slowly trickled amid his black eyelashes until falling and trickling down his soft skin of melted bronze.

  What have I done? What is to become of me? Now, I wish I wouldn’t have gotten into the gang fight. My people are all gone. Trench Vipers are finished, he looked down, defeated, at the heavily wrapped gauze and thought to himself.

  In the corner of this stark, white room stood a tranquil message to erase Treach’s misdeeds. A validation of grief, the inscription held peace for those who dared to seek it. The necklace was merely an idol rosary of stringed gold beads overshadowing a gold laden pair of hands: one opened, one closed. His prowess beamed grace over the nobility of turmoil. Sent to him by the Mary of his life, the glow of radiance the necklace shot out exempted his endowment to flee free. The only hindrances leaving him to remain were the doctor’s orders, a pending court case, and his skin grafts that would take two weeks to heal.

  The closeness of the grafts embodied a transfer from one gang leader to the next. A. Spade Down was the nearest dying corpse the mercenary doctor could find to save Treach’s lost mid-section. Placed on ice, the dissected abdominal shell barely found its new owner before it was too late. Dr. Carvinseal swiftly took credit for his success and held tightly to the ingratiating congratulations from his team of undertows. A new color earned also meant an advance in pay. He looked at this patient with an articulate stare, saying with his eyes, Thank you for getting hurt, dumbass gang-banger. His flow of grizzly hair, matted down on the left side, stood in stark contrast to his confidence that he alone always chose the right path. Somewhat of an outcast from the popular groups in society, his choices had steered him in the best of ways. Why he was cast to Trendago is a mystery only a few elite magistrates could recognize. Deep in his hidden past, he had granted death warrants to people too weak to continue living during malignant controversies.