The Begotten

By Ike Smith

A coward dies a thousand deaths. But what if the valiant could live thousands of lifetimes? That's what it will take for Doss and Redbridge to defeat the Reapers, an enemy hell-bent on enslaving humanity in order to achieve the unthinkable: eternal life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 290 East Entertainment, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733189903

Book preview

The Begotten

290 East Entertainment Presents

the Begotten

Copyright

Copyright © 2019 by Ike Smith

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2019

ISBN 978-1-7331899-0-3

290 East Entertainment, Inc.

150 N. Michigan Avenue, Ste. 2400

Chicago, Illinois 60601-3613

Introduction

If a coward dies a thousand deaths.

What if the valiant lived thousands of lifetimes?

CHAPTER 1: A Wolf, the Sheep and the Blues

ANDRE DOSS DOSSINGER waits on the elevated train dais of the Kedzie station on Chicago’s West Side. It’s Monday. Morning rush hour’s bumper-to-bumper traffic whirrs on the street below.

Doss takes in the morning. He’s a stout black man. A seasoned curmudgeon of 55 years, he looks like the sort seen at any random construction site or auto mechanic shop. His roughhewn face with permanent scowl lines between his thick brows, dingy black cargo pants and tatty brown hoodie melds perfectly with the mix of about sixty Chicago commuters on the platform.

Chatty public high school students bunch up. Blue-collar grunts and office workers idle. All impatiently chatter while waiting for the next morning train. But the eastbound green line L-train headed for Chicago’s downtown is 30 minutes late.

Doss is in no hurry. He expected this. In fact, it’s not unusual. Considering the green line runs east and west for over 20 miles with 30 stops from west suburban Oak Park to Chicago’s South Side. The loathsome middle stretch through the heart of the impecunious West Side is where things get capricious. Along the way, suicidal transients loitering this route tend to jump onto the tracks during morning rush hour, jinxing arrival times. Doss knows, today’s likely no different.

His learnt green eyes ponder over antsy commuters, especially the faces haunted by workweek drudge. A stitch of pity swells in him for such hard-working souls in this unyielding city. He knows how they feel. The angst of working men and women fills Doss’ veins too.

Chicago’s Southwest Side in the Back of the Yards neighborhood was Doss’ birthplace and stomping ground. He remembers it well. The industrial hub was near the Union Stock Yards. For over a century, Chicago was once known as the hog butcher for the world as it was the center of the meatpacking industry. Doss’ father, Ronald, toiled the stock yards during the 1960s while his mother, Althea, worked part-time stints in local butcher shops.

As a kid, Doss earned grit helping his father work the stockyards. Occasionally he’d also serve as a butcher’s apprentice with his mother in a local butcher shop. It was there Doss got used to getting blood on his hands. But by the early 70s, the decentralization of the meatpacking industry left Robert and Althea unemployed.

Life changed.

Robert was a talented pool player, yet gambled and drank up most of his winnings. He soon fell into debt with the Chicago Outfit and was shot and killed. Althea succumbed to a heart attack shortly afterwards. Doss buried his parents and was homeless by 14-years old.

What’s up kiddo!

The jovial voice of a high school boy rings out. Doss quits reminiscing as he watches a burly Mexican kid hustle past to greet a clique of rowdy boys. Youthful folly ensues as the Mexican boy roughhouses with his buddies. Doss chuckles to himself, reminded of his own teenage years and an old, dear friend: Sammy Juarez.

Intent to avoid shady foster homes after his parents died, 14-year old Doss lived wherever he could on Chicago’s streets. His plan was to join the military as soon as he reached the legal age. Until then, for extra cash, Doss took up petty crime and street fighting.

He went undefeated in over 30 scraps staged by neighborhood gangs during summers in drug stash spots and garages. A natural provocateur of violence emerged. Thugs nicknamed him Doss, slang for bed, due to his ability to put opponents to sleep.

His only near defeat was at the hands of a 17-year old high school wrestler known as Southside Sammy Juarez, a Mexican brawler. The two fought, uninterrupted for over an hour. After Doss finally knocked Sammy out with a knee to the orbital bone, they became best friends.

But two years later, Sammy got shot in the face by Black Gangster Disciple gang hitmen. It was a drive-by shooting. Street gossip hinted that Sammy impregnated some black guy’s sister but refused to acknowledge the child. Plus,