Been working on this story for a while. There's alot more to it than the one I began sharing. Don't know if anyone will enjoy it, but here it is:
This is Hell. A city run by crooks and killers. A world all on its own. It was enough to make the most jaded man sick. The Lake, as most people called it, was the stain of it all. The city itself, Purgatory, was bad enough. The Lake was worse. It was positioned in the direct center of the city. The drug deals, clubs, and crooked business men kept it busy. Johnny O’Dell sat himself on the roadside, on top of his old Harley, surveying the scene before him. One prostitute from a group of many talked to someone in a car from the sidewalk. A young man, no older than 20, came stumbling out of a bar, vomiting on the side of the road. The bar sat on the corner of two streets. Down the road that ran perpendicular, Johnny spotted a couple in a dark corner making out and feeling each other up. There was no shame in these people. Across the street from the bar was a club, simply called The Hole. A nest for junkies and drunks to get there jollies with experimental drugs and drinks that were harder than a kick in the head. Tonight, this was Johnny’s target.
He got up from his bike. He was young, but still domineering. His brownish-red hair and freckles around his nose gave him a somewhat boyish look, but years of weight lifting and physical combat training turned his body into an absolute machine. He wasn’t bulked out by any means, but he had cut to him. His hair was slicked back, and he wore designers clothing. a leather biker jacket, T-shirt, jeans, and leather shoes. Just another rich kid going into The Hole to get some kicks. He walked across the street and when he reached the sidewalk was hailed by one of the prostitutes nearby.
“You lookin’ for a good time big guy?”
Johnny just smiled as if he would take her up on her offer once he was finished. He opened the door to the club and found nothing less than what he expected. An overly loud rock band preformed on stage, ironically called Overkill. To his right was a long bar where women sat with short skirts and low cut blouses while lusting dumbstruck guys bought them drinks and said everything they could to get them home. To his left, roped off from the rest of room, was a table and chair area. From where Johnny was by the door he could see friends sitting at tables together sniffing coke and taking acid. Between him and the stage was a mass of sweaty bodies pressing in to each other in a mosh pit. Johnny looked up, a balcony section surrounded the entire perimeter. This is where the big boys would be. The Lake may have been for low lives, but that didn’t stop any of Purgatory’s elite to join the evening festivities.
Johnny spotted a hidden set of steps directly to his left, tucked behind the tables and chairs set up. He walked over, no one gave him a second glance. At the bottom of the stairs stood a hulking figure. Typical security type. Bald, hawk like nose, biceps the size of tree trunks.
“Can I help you?” He asked in an unnaturally low voice.
“I’m just going up to see a friend.” Johnny tried to walk his way past, but the guard put a large hand on his chest and pushed him back.
“Sorry.” He said with a sadistic smile.
“Sorry what?”
“Invitation only.”
“I’m just going up to hang with a friend of mine, is that an issue?”
“No. No issue. That’s just the rule. Sorry chump.” The guard gave Johnny a hard tap on his cheek.
Now there’s an unspoken rule between guys, one push is excusable, two pushes you get a warning, three…You get what you ask for.
“You better keep an eye on what you’re doing with that hand.” Johnny said.
“Or what?” He tapped his cheek again and said in a baby voice “You gonna go to work on me witto man?”
Johnny clenched a fist and let it fly straight into the man’s temple knocking him out cold.
“I warned you not to touch me again.” Johnny added as he walked up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs a bar ran along the wall. Directly ahead were several round tables with leather seats. A short distance away sat a small man in a three piece suit surrounded by two women and nearly a half dozen bodyguards, not counting any that may be sitting at nearby tables. Johnny strode over stopping directly behind a laughing body guard with a huge cigar. The small man looked up from his drink and glared. Johnny tapped the bodyguard on his shoulder. The body guard turned and was slammed in the side of his head with a fist. The rest of the bodyguards on the balcony flew up from their seats pulling guns out from inside jacket pockets. Before they could make a move Johnny had two guns pulled out and aimed directly at the small man.
“I just want to talk.” He said.
The small man just stared as if he had nothing to fear.
“Tell them to put their guns down and sit or I blow your head off.”
He made a small motion with his hand and all the bodyguards slowly put away their guns and sat, their eyes still trained on Johnny. Johnny brought his guns down, kicked the unconscious bodyguard to the floor and sat down.
“I hope you have a plan out of here.” The man said with a high voice.
“I didn’t come to kill you.”
“Really? You just came to take people out and point a gun at my head so….What? You can talk?”
“I came to show you people aren’t scared anymore. You’re days are numbered. One day you’re going to die.”
“So…You came here to warn me, or threaten me?” The man said with a smirk.
Johnny saw a slight movement to his right and got up from his seat.
“Go ahead, leave. I’ll give you, I don’t know, five seconds before my guys fire at you. Go.”
Johnny’s eyes shifted around remembering where he had seen all the other bodyguards. The music thundered. The bass thumping through the room threatening to impede his senses. They were making their move. quick as lightening Johnny whipped his gun up shooting six successive shots in a row to the bodyguards immediately nearby. The two girls began screaming uncontrollably over the sound of the music. But Johnny couldn’t hear them. The music had become the flow and adrenaline in his veins, giving him rhythm, and reason. He flung his arms to opposite sides of the room firing at body guards spread out across the balcony. The small man was gone before anyone could find him. Once Johnny had ran out his magazines he made a mad dash for the balcony rail and threw himself over the side. The music had stopped but it was still buzzing through him like Nos being pushed in a gas line. Johnny landed on a table breaking off its legs and fell hard to the floor, but he didn’t even think. Before he had time to register any kind of pain he rolled to his feet and ran to the door. People everywhere were screaming. A man ran in front of him winding up a punch, Johnny curled his fingers and thumb into a C and jab him in the throat before he could swing, crushing his trachea. Another one came and Johnny delivered a hard left hook to his jaw, and a kick in his gut hard enough to make him vomit. Johnny punched the door open and ran as fast as he could across the street to his bike.
With the music still surging in his veins and the air burning his lungs he threw one leg over the bike, kick started, popped the clutch and flew down the road. There was muscle behind him, that he knew, though he didn’t know how. He took a sudden left down an open alley. He caught another opening to the right and took it, maneuvering the bike in a way he never thought he could. The music still surged. He couldn’t shake it. He could only keep one thought in his head, get out, get out, get out! The alley let out to a four lane highway that separated the lake and the rest of the city. Johnny swerved his bike around, hard to left, his tires screeching in protest. Several cars came to a screeching halt, horns piercing the night air. Shouts of profanity and middle fingers shot out from open windows. The adrenaline, the music, and the intensity were too much. Johnny was beginning to panic. He took a quick breath and quickly closed his eyes in an effort to relax. In the second he closed his eyes everything suddenly became clear. A complete calm returned. Every street of the impossibly large city forced themselves into his mind, and he saw an upcoming exit. When his eyes opened he could not see the exit, but he knew it was there. He made a right and took it. The exit let out on a back road that led back into the city.
Johnny spent some time driving. The music was fading, nearly gone. He had calmed down some now. The darkness closed in, enveloping him with peace and quiet. He felt the cool air breezing in through his hair, rushing past ears. He closed his eyes letting the air take him. It happened again. All the streets mapped themselves out appearing as sonar in his minds eye. He could see a car coming in from a side road roughly half a mile ahead. He shot his eyes back open in shock. There was no adrenaline. No drive. He felt unnaturally calm. He slowed his bike down briefly, just enough to let the car ahead get a head start. As he came closer to the side road he could see the car coming up to the intersection. Before either himself or the driver could register what was happening he smashed his bike into the side of the car. There was a loud crunch of twisting steel and breaking glass as Johnny was thrown from the bike over the top of the car. He landed on his shoulder on the opposite side and rolled several yards before coming to a stop. His entire body burned, the side of his head throbbed and felt numb. He rolled onto his back panting in exhaustion, feeling left for dead.
A hard jolt hit his inner thigh. It burned and started feeling wet. He craned his neck up from the pavement. There was a large bald man stumbling toward him. Gun extended. Johnny thought it was the bodyguard he had knocked out at the club but he couldn’t be sure. There was a large burn on the side of his face from an airbag deployment. On the other side of his face were several short, but deep cuts from glass shards. He fired the gun again, and Johnny felt another shot of pain right underneath the kneecap of his other leg. He yelled in pain. The bald man stood over him, staring down at him.
“You think you can insult me? Hmm?” He slammed the but of the gun into the side of Johnny’s jaw. Johnny spit up a little blood onto the road. The man slammed the gun into the numb side of his head. A screaming pain shot through the left side of his head down his neck. He made a short scream, and before he knew it he had passed out from the pain.
