Wasteland

By Keith Crews

Angelo Marchetti is dead.
If the hitman is to live again, he must traverse the Wasteland to find the Avalon’s sacred burial ground.
Armed with his tools of the killing trade along with his Elitario training, he is pitted against the forces of evil in a struggle to survive. But will his skills be enough to escape the minions of Boondocks or will he be imprisoned forever...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Keith Crews
• Release date: Jan 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458129338

Keith Crews

Keith Crews was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has written several novels which are currently being converted into audiobooks. He hopes you enjoy the read(s) :)

Book preview

WASTELAND

by

Keith Crews

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Keith Crews on Smashwords

Wasteland

Copyright © 2010 by Keith Crews

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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WASTELAND

CHAPTER ONE

THE LAST CHANCE

(1)

Angelo Marchetti was a killer.

Vengeance had tempered the hitman’s long journey with a test of age while death had come to season with a harvest for the worthy. The end would be heralded upon a gun’s barrel as an empire of corruption collapsed into the barren dust. It was a dream realized, yet stolen, bittersweet and satiated with hollow sentiment for fate was a thief and a whore that sold its virtue to the cruel.

But then the hitman was also cruel. Surely his currency had paid the way with suffering.

Should not the hitman suffer as well?

The night breathed neon from an urban jungle while the world below turned upon an axis of pandemonium. Sirens screeched into the ebony, damning the hitman to that place which would soon lay claim. Death had ripened the man with the steel gray eyes and soon the scythe would separate the stalk from the chaff.

It was to be expected.

The hitman’s piercing eyes faded under the fall of heavy eyelids as the blood let. His slender fingers touched the scarlet fissure at center chest where a fire burned fiercely. The bullet had torn clean through the heart, not a trace of lead to be found therein except for its spicy aftertaste.

The end drew nigh.

He stared upon the bleak nondescript horizon and to a deaf city that marked his passing with an indifferent shade of boredom. Here, he had finally come to the end of all things and nary a soul batted an eye nor ventured a glance in consideration.

Death offered a lonely bed of sorrow to lie upon.

In the soul’s dying light, dreams succumb to darkness. The woman that never was had departed him, lost forever to circumstance and a love unrealized. Perhaps their paths might chance to intertwine in the hereafter. A fool’s dream suffered to the hard spike, but it would be there that Angelo Marchetti’s journey would truly begin.

(2)

The hitman’s eyes slowly parted to an open. A pale horizon of silver-gray lay beneath a depressing canopy of charcoal sketch, the land a flat barren waste of gray ice and dull snow. Angelo crawled into a stiff slouch, that fearsome pain within his chest a faded memory. Carefully, his fingers inspected the wound: no hole nor stain of blood, just a dark denim shirt with black ebony buttons in store bought condition.

Angelo’s skilled hands ducked beneath the narrow lapels of his full length leather coat and swiftly withdrew Thunder and Lightning. The guns were composite black, ammo clips loaded down on eleven hard spikes with two additional nails chambered into the pipes. The howitzers were cold to the touch but felt good inside the skilled grip of the hitman’s slender hands. The weapons were dark trophies, harbingers of death and the fire with which the hitman struck. The guns were reliable tools of the killing trade and they had come to be in the hitman’s possession at a great personal cost. The weapons were more than just guns, they were symbolic of an unimaginable hardship both endured and conquered.

The Archer Howitzers had been paid for in blood.

The guns retreated back into their well-worn, well-oiled leather strap shoulder holsters, where they nested beneath his muscular arms in perilous wait. His fingers, cold and raw slid into the mild warmth aside his ribs, soaking up heat as the vicious wind kicked sharpened bits of ice into his eyes and stern lined face.

The hitman did not know where he was, but understood it was not the world he’d come from.

Perhaps an alternate universe?

Wherever it was, Angelo needed shelter or else he would die from hypothermia, and he had already suffered the weight of death once this night and would not bear its company again.

His keen eyes scanned the horizon in search of civilization only to find the desolate plateau of a frozen wasteland. In the distance a subtle light glowed dim on a shade of ethereal amber: a destination. Removing the belt from his coat’s waist, the hitman tied it firmly around his head like a bandana, covering the aching ears aside his head from the bite of frost. The buttons of the expensive Italian coat were fastened up to the neck, the thin lapels tucked awkwardly beneath the press of his square chin as a breaker.

It would be a long walk.

His snakeskin boots trudged forward through the snow, carrying him off across a frozen waste towards what could only be described as a slight glimmer of hope on an otherwise bleak frontier.

(3)

The town was small, a series of humble wooden shacks surrounded by a horse paddock of barn board fencing and the sight brought to mind where such timber had come from.

Angelo’s toes felt frozen within the wedge of his snakeskin boots, his fingers beaten by a frigid hammer, the cold flesh tied around his skull ached to a split. Regardless of who or what lived here, Angelo could not deny the immediate need for shelter. Despite the danger, the hitman staggered forth, eyes blurred by a gale force wind that seemed driven by a sentient will.

A wooden hand painted sign flapped overhead inside the gusts of an angry wind which simply read Boondocks. Angelo’s cubed feet stumbled through the town’s rickety gates and down its solitary street which separated a sum of twelve humble wooden buildings. The snow lay thin along the cracked tundra but had drifted neck deep in some corners. A cold dull light spilled through several frosty windows of each building, a wispy shade of orange as thrown from weak oil lanterns and dim candles. A few silhouettes fleeted behind the panes which ran the length of main street.

Someone lived here and they were watchful.

From beneath his hide of leather lay the guns.

What would they feel like inside his cold hands?

He doubted his frozen fingers would even recognize their touch. Still, the howitzers wanted to be held, to protect their guardian, but Angelo kept them holstered. Despite the fact that the hitman was vulnerable, he felt a show of strength would not work in his favor in these cursed lands. He needed the kindness of strangers and he wouldn’t invoke much sympathy with angry gun barrels.

At the far end of the modest shacks stood a two story building constructed from black castle stone and ashen barn board. It had a tall fort door that was flanked to either side by sectional plate windows that were buried beneath a thin layer of white ice. From behind the translucent panes, a bright orange glow promised both warmth and untold knowledge, perhaps the very meaning of life, or in this case, death.

The hitman’s boots stepped up onto the open porch of warped boards that ran along the building’s forward veneer like broken piano keys. The sound beneath their heels was dull but nonetheless glorious. Angelo’s hand came out of hiding from within the folds of his jacket and laid itself upon a wrought iron door handle. The metal’s touch barely registered and the hitman couldn’t help but think on Thunder and Lightning again.

If he had to throw down, would he even be able to pull their triggers?

The handle clicked and the heavy beam door swung open.

(4)

Aromas greeted Angelo: cigar smoke, booze, cooked meat and old wood that had eaten more than its share of hard age. But there was also something else in the mix, subtle and faint, a staleness associated with rot, dead that had died.

Logs laid piled within the colorful quartz hub of a stone hearth fireplace that cast off an inviting warmth. The pine wood kindling popped and hissed under the burst of red-orange embers with an almost musical rhythm.

The old man behind the mahogany bar was tall, lean, had hungry eyes. He worked a white dishrag into a clear shot glass with long slender fingers. He regarded Angelo without the slightest hint of surprise as if he’d been expecting the hitman all along.

Despite Angelo’s concern that he might be walking into trouble, he nonetheless lumbered inside on legs that felt weighted down on blocks of granite. The hitman casually assessed the bartender with the thick dark moustache and crooked nose.

There was a tense pause, an ominous quiet that only gave up its silence to the snaps and pops of explosive sparks.

Howdy, the bartender said in a calm even voice. Welcome to the Last Chance Saloon.

Evening, Angelo said with a courteous nod. Mind if I cozy up to your fire?

The bartender gave a crooked grin, one that was knowing and spoke on many different levels. You and I both know what you really need, Angelo.

If he wasn’t already frozen, Angelo would have given a shudder. It wasn’t that the bartender had known his name, it was how he had said it. There was a strange note of authority within the old man’s cadence, words spoken by someone who wasn’t quite human.

Angelo shuffled over to the bar on heat deprived legs, still wondering just how heavy Thunder and Lightning would feel inside the mitts of his cold dead hands. The hitman lifted an arm and removed the leather belt that had kept his ears from falling off the sides of his head. It was an arduous effort, a struggle he kept hidden from the barkeep with a well practiced poker face. However, the bartender’s eyes knew better and could see through such bluffs, because he wasn’t of the natural world, but rather a creature of the hereafter.

What’s your poison? the bartender asked as he slapped a shot glass down onto the bar.

Dark rum, Angelo replied, unable to stop his voice from stammering ever so slightly from the cold.

No…I don’t think you understood the question, the bartender said as he leaned onto the bar, arms braced wide, eyes locked with Angelo’s as if peering into the dark recesses of the hitman’s soul. I said---what’s your poison?

Angelo managed to crawl up onto a barstool with a fair amount of grace. His body, though dead, still had some life in it. His eyes never left the bartender’s and Angelo’s face never hinted once that he was confused.

What’s my poison?

Deluca came to mind, but Angelo knew intuitively that wasn’t the answer the bartender sought. What was his poison?

My heart.

The bartender gave a slow nod of understanding. A man who can answer that honestly, deserves a goddamn drink.

The bartender reached beneath the bar and withdrew two more shot glasses, which were casually set next to the empty glass the barkeep had just cleaned.

Angelo gave a faint smile. Line’em up barkeep. I’ve had one hell of a night.

The hitman managed to say this without a tremor.

The bartender pulled out a transparent glass bottle which he sat beside the small trio of empty shot glasses. This unlabelled bottle was half full with a crystal clear liquid that Angelo pegged as homebrewed moonshine. It may not have been rum, but anything that could kick like a mule was welcome company on this side of the rainbow.

The bartender poured out a measure of hooch into the first glass, a strange concoction that was the color of dark russet. Angelo immediately studied the bottle, noted how the liquid inside had not changed from its transparent texture.

How was that possible?

The second shot glass was filled, except this recipe wasn’t brown, but a deep shade of sunset scarlet. The bottle’s mouth then kissed the third glass and out spat three fingers of watery black oil. Still, the transparent solution within the unmarked bottle remained ever clear.

And one more for the sinner, the bartender said as he touched the bottle to his lips and tossed back a good stiff hit. The bartender then set the bottle back down where Angelo once again examined it closely.

There was still no sign of discolor to be found within.

Neat trick, Angelo said with a curt laugh. His voice sounded a bit breathy, chilled, but steady just the same. What do you do for an encore?

The bartender fixed Angelo with an expression which may have been either respect or cold calculation. You’ve still got your wit. That’s good…for a dead man.

There it was, dead man, those telling words, the goddamn finality in them.

So, when do I get to meet God?

The bartender crooked a smile and then gave the slightest hint of a chuckle. Got a bunch of questions flapping around inside that mean head of yours, don’t ya Angelo?

Riddled with them, Angelo replied.

The hitman felt as though he should be relieved, that finally he was going to get some answers. But that weird feeling that had given him the unfortunate news that he was dead earlier said words to the contrary. It told him to keep Thunder and Lightning close, and to be extremely cautious of the bartender.

Angelo let his eyes fall onto the drinks.

They were beautiful, but that gut feeling could sense their danger. They were supernatural potions as prescribed to the damned, and although Angelo craved a good hard drink, the warning within his heart wanted no part of those eerie tonics.

Still, his curiosity was ravenous.

What did they do?

Why had the bartender poured out three?

Was the barkeep expecting company, some other drifter to come waltzing in through the door?

Angelo could feel the fireplace pour heat back into his icy body, and as a result his hands and ears ached terribly as the blood slowly made its way back into his frozen veins. Still, the hitman took it as a good sign that on some level, part of him was not only human, but alive as well. However, questions continued to rattle around inside the hitman’s head like bats in an attic, the biggest question of them all involved the ghostly drinks on the bar.

Why three?

I’m not your guardian angel, Marchetti, the bartender said with a serious intonation. I am what I am, and what this is depends on if you want to know.

Angelo went to harbor a question on just that, but the bartender raised a finger in silence.

I’m not a sympathetic ear nor a priest to absolve a confession of sins, Marchetti. You’ve come to Boondocks and like those before, you will adhere to the house rules.

Angelo thought to ask, or what, but kept silent. He didn’t need a confrontation at the moment, even though the pain inside his hands had slowly begun to fade. True, they were recovering, but they were far from being useful in a shootout.

The ladies would have to sit and wait regardless.

Take your fill death merchant and lets have at it with due diligence. The bartender’s eyes briefly caught sight of the door as if to look beyond and out into that bitter darkness that sucked the life out of the very soil. There’s sinister work to be done this night, and as always my service is to Sartomonius.

Again, Angelo thought to field a question, but he could tell that the bartender had yet to finish his nonsensical spiel, which didn’t sound so much like a riddle, but a rant.

Three drinks have been poured before thee, and three drinks you shall bear, fates damn you. The bartender then let his hollow eyes sweep along the shot glasses with such a fierce gaze, that Angelo was almost certain that they would burst into flame. See them well death merchant, and see them through from brown to black. Taste of one, and a question shall be granted an answer. Taste of another, and an answer shall favor curiosity once more. Drink the third and the last words asked shall be met with certain knowledge. The barkeep crossed his arms and nodded decisively. These are the house rules of The Last Chance Saloon, death merchant. So as they were…are…and forever shall be. A wide pompous grin aligned the barkeep’s thinly wound lips. Complete these three tasks and then safe passage from Boondocks shall be granted, so say the house rules, amen.

Angelo shuffled uncomfortably upon the barstool, wanting very much to knock the shot glasses and the bartender onto the floor. The hitman didn’t care to be spoken to in such absolute terms. The only orders Angelo received came from a fat guy they called the Big Greasy---Romulus---not some ugly suds monkey with a shiny handlebar moustache.

Thunder and Lighting suddenly felt as though a heat had begun to emanate from within their well-oiled chambers. They didn’t care much for the bartender’s tone either, but Angelo kept them leashed as he didn’t yet fully grasp what he was up against. Perhaps on this side of the rainbow bartenders were bullet proof and ate mafia hitmen for nice light snacks. Angelo would play it cool, drink his fill of magic hooch and then ask three paltry questions.

What could the hitman possibly hope to learn from such a limited exchange? Directions to the bathroom---where to get a good cigar---if they sold those beef jerky strips that he enjoyed so much back in the land of the living.

What would he ask?

But more importantly, what did those drinks on the bar do?

Angelo examined the shot glasses with a mindful eye. The drinks had an almost incandescent quality, a glow that seemed to pulse like a faint heartbeat.

Were they alive?

Parasitic organisms that wormed their way into the brain via the liver?

Angelo’s cold but steady fingers picked up the first shot glass of brown and raised it in a toast salute. Here’s mud in your eye, barkeep.

With that said, the hitman threw back the muddy drink in one quick toss and then slammed the glass back down onto the counter. The aftertaste was like damp soil that had been laden down with a snarl of slick earthworms, the kind of vermin that fed on funeral casket parfait. The hitman wanted to gag, but he kept that reflex in careful check lest he appear weak in the barkeep’s eyes.

Always the tough guy.

As for Angelo’s eyes, they were a completely different story.

They had a mind of their own, rolled lazily around inside his head as if their owner were totally exhausted and ready to pass out. However, the hitman’s mind remained wholly alert, its thoughts plotting a course of action, like the most efficient way to aim Thunder and Lightning with his vision on the fritz, and how much those special ladies would weigh inside his cold grip.

The killer hands at the ends of his wrists prepared to respond, to bring on the storm, when his eyelids suddenly steadied. The hitman regarded the bartender with a not too impressed sentiment, to which the barkeep grinned fiendishly.

Tough as nails and thrice as sharp, the bartender said with a shake of his ratty head.

The bartender had seen many a soul pass out over the ages, some even die. Very few stayed conscious after tasting a good stiff shot of yester, let alone remain seated on their barstool like this mean spirited thug had.

Now death merchant, gaze into my mirror and show me your poison. Then I’ll fancy thee with an answer to your first question.

Angelo thought to sarcastically ask for another tip of brown, but worried that might constitute a genuine question. Instead, he bade the bartender’s request and let his keen eyes examine the mirror on the back wall, his body always warming, hands always preparing.

The mirror was enormous, framed in by golden ornaments which resembled human and animal bones alike. It stood before a huge selection of spirits, booze that came in many different sizes and colorful bottles. Of course part of that bounty was an illusion, the mirror’s reflection added dimension to the room and exaggerated the amount of liquor by a factor of two. Still, it was a good stash, perhaps even enough to get a few dozen loan shark leg breakers nice and jagged.

As for the looking glass: it changed, resembled a pool of liquid chrome, a surface whose boundary could not easily be plotted. Its high sheen surface rolled like a seamless wave upon a lake of silver sterling. It had taken on an entirely different dimension, one that perhaps did not reflect images but imitated them, because in truth there had never been a mirror there to begin with, just a large smooth eye that showed what it saw and saw what it coveted.

Angelo tried to look away, but was unable to pry his eyes free from the freaky sideshow mirror. The mirror hooked the hitman’s sharp wits by the brainstem and pulled his soul out through the apertures of his unblinking eyes like a black hole swallows light. Angelo’s posterior remained planted upon the barroom stool but his mind tumbled through time and space, thoughts dizzy on a stiff shot of yester. But before Angelo Marchetti’s essence impacted with the warped border of the barroom mirror, he heard a recognizable sound.

It was grating and made the stomach tighten in a way that only one noise could.

It was none other than Mount Hope’s mid-morning recess buzzer.

CHAPTER TWO

BROWN

(1)

The punch had been square to the nose, and as a result, Patrick Shea had once again knocked Angelo Marchetti onto his arse. Blood spurted from both nostrils and ran down the back of Angelo’s throat in hot generous gobs. His gray eyes blurred and watered from the unprovoked strike, but the boy on the ground didn’t dare cry. Things would be worse if he did, because if there was one thing Patrick Shea reveled in, it was someone else’s tears.

Angelo wanted to crawl off and lick his wounds, but he kept a firm lip and kept seated, because as the schoolyard rule book stated: you stayed down when you’d been put down. Still, that didn’t stop Angelo from regarding Patrick with cold eyes that would someday have their revenge. Today however, was not to be that day, and so the only thing that Angelo Marchetti could do was sit on the cracked pavement and bleed buckets.

It was humiliating to be made spectacle of in such a manner. If only it had been a fair fight then Angelo could of at least have taken solace in the fact that he’d met combat in good form. But as far as that brief slug match with Patrick had gone, Angelo had been beaten like a mangy dog.

In Angelo’s peripheral vision, stood other orphans who had also felt the heavy mitts of the Mount Hope Bully. They looked on from relative safety like docile sheep, and the sight of them made Angelo’s blood boil, those weak timid ewe faces which had stood by and done nothing to help. However, what bothered Angelo most of all was his own frailty, the prepubescent limbs at his sides that lacked both strength and skill, their poor coordination hopelessly bound to a twelve year old body.

What are you looking at, Angela? Patrick asked with a mean spirited laugh.

Patrick loved to call Angelo, Angela, that and wop faggot.

Angelo slowly took in Patrick’s details with murderous disdain: the way Patrick’s curly red hair was wound too close to his otherwise thick skull. The dull unremarkable eyes of outhouse brown and the beefy meat hooks that hung stupidly beside his overly plump frame. Yes, Patrick was nothing but an ugly fifteen year old idiot, a genuine sack of crud with the brains to match, and someday, God help him, Angelo would make the Mount Hope Bully pay in blood.

To an adult, Patrick was not an intimidating specimen, but rather an armchair athlete with a fondness for pork rinds and soda pop. However, to a flock of young children he was a giant. Angelo understood this, but that never made accepting the beatings any easier. Patrick had three years on Angelo and at least seventy-five pounds. If Angelo was ever going to win a fight, he would have to grow like a weed on steroids, because on this level of the schoolyard jungle, size was paramount to leverage, a commodity Angelo Marchetti did not have in abundance.

Didn’t you hear me, Angela? Patrick razzed. Patrick knelt down to gloat over his handy work. The bloody nose on Marchetti’s face was deeply fascinating, the shiny redness of it, the way it splintered down his chin and onto his neck like scarlet tree roots. I said what you looking at?

Patrick never cared much for the way Angelo regarded him. It wasn’t so much a hostile glare inside the skinny wop’s cold eyes as it was something else. Something strong, a trait that perhaps fought oppression and challenged Patrick’s absolute authority over the orphaned residents of Mount Hope. Patrick felt that such a seed must not be allowed to blossom. So Patrick had taken it upon himself to make sure that the little snot nose was taught a lesson on a regular basis. Still, as much as Patrick enjoyed walloping Marchetti’s ass, he couldn’t help but feel as though the little prick was plotting something, a nasty deed that might get Patrick Shea in trouble with the orphanage’s strict administrator, Edgar Cornwall, or maybe even the authorities. Whatever the little wop bastard may have had planned for him, Patrick didn’t like it. The uncertainty of it put Patrick in mind of an open ended threat. Angelo felt like a loose end that must be tied, and the best way to put out that fire would be with buckets of Marchetti’s blood. Given enough time, Patrick was certain that he could hammer the lanky little wop into complete submission, just as he had with all the rest. And so the beatings would continue until that weird glimmer of light went out of Angelo’s faggot eyes once and for all.

As for Patrick’s question, Angelo’s reply was muffled out by the recess buzzer, and it was a good thing that it had, because the kid that bled buckets had said something that would not have helped his situation in the least. In fact, Patrick Shea might very well have kicked Angelo to death if he had caught wind of it.

As for what Angelo had said, it was a simple melding of two words, one that would’ve cut right to the core of Patrick Shea’s dark soul: Murder-suicide.

Those two words were the reason why Patrick Shea had come to be in the good care of Mount Hope Orphanage. Rumor had it that Big Daddy Shea had killed Patrick’s mom with a serrated steak knife when Patrick was nine years old, and rumor also had it that poor old Patrick had witnessed the terrible scene. In fact, if one cared to look beneath Patrick’s frayed striped shirt, they’d see that the Mount Hope Bully had one hell of a beauty mark carved into the center of his own chest, and no, it wasn’t a surgical scar.

Seemed that Big Daddy Shea had taken it upon himself to perform a post-birth-abortion just before he hung himself from the garage rafter. Of course, Patrick had survived the attack, and in honor of that murdering son of a bitch father who had maimed him so deeply, Patrick had taken it upon himself to see that the old man’s nasty disposition lived on within his son.

Murder-Suicide.

No one dared to speak those words to the Mount Hope Bully, because the last kid that did had lost an eye and picked up a terrible stutter. According to that tale, the assault would’ve been murder if a teacher hadn’t intervened and saved the kid from being pummeled to death. Still, enough damage had been done to the boy to render him a handicap, and as for Patrick, he’d served only three years in reform school as punishment. But thanks to budget cutbacks and a lack of alternative accommodations, Patrick was once again back amongst the regulars of Mount Hope Orphanage, and wouldn’t you know it, he was meaner than ever.

So much for reform school.

Patrick stood up and looked down on Angelo with a twisted sneer, his thin pale lips parted enough to show stained yellow teeth. Time for class you stinking wop faggot. And don’t think about telling on me, or I’ll slit your freaking throat. You hear me, Angela?

Angelo nodded slowly as he wiped the blood from the lower part of his face. He’d never been so glad to hear that miserable old buzzer which usually went through him like nails along a chalkboard, but today it had saved him from his own stupidity.

Patrick casually retreated back into the building’s ocher bricks while Angelo stood upon legs that felt as though they might buckle at the knees without warning. Angelo was pumped up on adrenaline, but had enough flesh dipped into the mundane to let him know that he’d been hurt bad. The bloody nose was just the icing, there were other injuries to contend with: bruised arms, swelling on the side of his skull and a nasty scrape on his left shoulder. Angelo was a sorry looking soldier, but any battle you walked away from was undoubtedly a good one. Now he would hobble back into school, clean up in the washroom and then make up an excuse as to why he was late for class.

Of course all the students would know what had happened, but none of them would confess a word to the teachers either, lest Patrick somehow find out and pound them into hamburger. No, Angelo was on his own, and the only thing he could do was tend to his cuts and avoid Patrick as much as possible. Of course there was that certain sick knowledge that always preceded the inevitable, the absolute certainty that there would be other beatings to contend with. Perhaps not this week nor the next, but soon enough. Angelo could already feel those