Read Online All Due Respect Issue 2 by Owen Laukkanen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Owen Laukkanen
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Another shot. I jumped up and squeezed off a few “fuck you” shots.
The motor faded. I ran to the door and peered through the hole. Taillights, glowing red, speeding into the night.
“Motherfuckers!”
Of course, some asshole called the cops, cops in this case being the sheriff and his deputy.
Sheriff Parker stood about six feet tall and looked like a farmer, with deep blue eyes and a weather-beaten face. He took down my account, grinning all the while, and promised he’d catch the “travelin’ nigger” who was responsible.
I called the feds and told them what happened.
“How did he know it was you?” the director asked.
“Fuck if I know. If he had any solid evidence I killed that Delmar dick, he’d have taken me in. Right?”
“I don’t know. This wasn’t the police, though; this was the Klan.”
“Yeah, well, they shot at the wrong motherfucker.”
“Don’t do anything!”
The next day I left Mississippi. In Tampa, I met with a guy I knew through the Larazas and bought a machine gun, some ammo, and a few grenades. I was back in town by midnight, just as the news was starting to break: The three missing civil rights workers had been found buried in a shallow grave under a willow tree.
I checked out of the motel the next afternoon and drove down to Jackson to get my pay.
After promising the director to leave right away, I went back to Louisa and parked across from the Hunt and Fish club on Pine Street. POKER THURSDAY NIGHT. MEMBERS ONLY.
Good thing it was Thursday.
Around five, guys started showing up. There was Larry King. Oh, and the sheriff in plainclothes.
I waited.
Once it looked like the gang was all there, I got my carbine and walked across the street, right in front of an oncoming car.
The doors were unlocked. Inside was a long hallway terminating in a set of stairs. I heard voices.
At the top of the stairs was a set of double doors. Beyond was a little meeting hall or something; some asshole was standing behind a podium talking about niggers and kikes and commies.
He must have heard me coming, because he turned and looked at me.
I blew him away.
Before he had even fallen, I leapt through the door, guns blazing like a cowboy or something. There were ten guys in folding chairs. I shot all of them like sheep.
Except Parker. I must have missed him somehow, because the next thing I know, he’s shooting back, and I’m falling against the wall, my guts on fire.
He was on the floor now, crawling away. I opened up, hitting empty chairs and dead bodies. Parker got to his feet and bolted through a door.
I threw myself back into the hall, and there he was, limping away. So I did hit him.
I raised the gun and fired.
Click-click .
Fuck. Jammed. I threw it aside and whipped out the pistol.
Parker was already firing again. He hit me twice, once in the leg and once in the head, taking my ear clean off.
I don’t remember much after that. I vaguely recall being on top of the dick and strangling him, but I don’t remember how I got there. I do remember pulling the pin of a grenade and shoving it into Parker’s mouth, breaking teeth.
How I made it away I’ll never know, but I recall staggering out the front door just as the hall behind me went up.
The next memory I have is being in the hospital, feds hovering over me. They talked a big game about putting me away for life, but the director himself thanked me for taking out the scumbags. All they did was fine me.
They explained the shooting away by saying there was a civil war in the Klan or something. I don’t know. As soon as I was well enough to travel, they took me back home and left me in bed.
----
Joseph Rubas has been featured in a number of ’zines and hardcopy publications, including [Nameless], The Horror Zine, The Storyteller, Eschatology Journal, Infective Ink, Strange, Weird, and Wonderful, and Horror Bound Online.
T HE I CE- C OLD A LIBI
B Y E RIC B EETNER
Des Moines, 1947
1.
D OTTIE LOOKED DOWN AT the
The motor faded. I ran to the door and peered through the hole. Taillights, glowing red, speeding into the night.
“Motherfuckers!”
Of course, some asshole called the cops, cops in this case being the sheriff and his deputy.
Sheriff Parker stood about six feet tall and looked like a farmer, with deep blue eyes and a weather-beaten face. He took down my account, grinning all the while, and promised he’d catch the “travelin’ nigger” who was responsible.
I called the feds and told them what happened.
“How did he know it was you?” the director asked.
“Fuck if I know. If he had any solid evidence I killed that Delmar dick, he’d have taken me in. Right?”
“I don’t know. This wasn’t the police, though; this was the Klan.”
“Yeah, well, they shot at the wrong motherfucker.”
“Don’t do anything!”
The next day I left Mississippi. In Tampa, I met with a guy I knew through the Larazas and bought a machine gun, some ammo, and a few grenades. I was back in town by midnight, just as the news was starting to break: The three missing civil rights workers had been found buried in a shallow grave under a willow tree.
I checked out of the motel the next afternoon and drove down to Jackson to get my pay.
After promising the director to leave right away, I went back to Louisa and parked across from the Hunt and Fish club on Pine Street. POKER THURSDAY NIGHT. MEMBERS ONLY.
Good thing it was Thursday.
Around five, guys started showing up. There was Larry King. Oh, and the sheriff in plainclothes.
I waited.
Once it looked like the gang was all there, I got my carbine and walked across the street, right in front of an oncoming car.
The doors were unlocked. Inside was a long hallway terminating in a set of stairs. I heard voices.
At the top of the stairs was a set of double doors. Beyond was a little meeting hall or something; some asshole was standing behind a podium talking about niggers and kikes and commies.
He must have heard me coming, because he turned and looked at me.
I blew him away.
Before he had even fallen, I leapt through the door, guns blazing like a cowboy or something. There were ten guys in folding chairs. I shot all of them like sheep.
Except Parker. I must have missed him somehow, because the next thing I know, he’s shooting back, and I’m falling against the wall, my guts on fire.
He was on the floor now, crawling away. I opened up, hitting empty chairs and dead bodies. Parker got to his feet and bolted through a door.
I threw myself back into the hall, and there he was, limping away. So I did hit him.
I raised the gun and fired.
Click-click .
Fuck. Jammed. I threw it aside and whipped out the pistol.
Parker was already firing again. He hit me twice, once in the leg and once in the head, taking my ear clean off.
I don’t remember much after that. I vaguely recall being on top of the dick and strangling him, but I don’t remember how I got there. I do remember pulling the pin of a grenade and shoving it into Parker’s mouth, breaking teeth.
How I made it away I’ll never know, but I recall staggering out the front door just as the hall behind me went up.
The next memory I have is being in the hospital, feds hovering over me. They talked a big game about putting me away for life, but the director himself thanked me for taking out the scumbags. All they did was fine me.
They explained the shooting away by saying there was a civil war in the Klan or something. I don’t know. As soon as I was well enough to travel, they took me back home and left me in bed.
----
Joseph Rubas has been featured in a number of ’zines and hardcopy publications, including [Nameless], The Horror Zine, The Storyteller, Eschatology Journal, Infective Ink, Strange, Weird, and Wonderful, and Horror Bound Online.
T HE I CE- C OLD A LIBI
B Y E RIC B EETNER
Des Moines, 1947
1.
D OTTIE LOOKED DOWN AT the
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