Saturday Night Pulps

continued from Chapter 4 Tonto Ramirez stared at the men standing over him, blocking the television. Their dark, tailored suits told him they had money, but with the mind-numbing painkillers coursing through his system, that was all he could wrap his mind around. That, and they looked dangerous. But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except his grandmother coming home with his refill. “I told the cops everything I know,” he said, tired of people coming to him with questions. First it was the cops, then it was the reporters, then more cops. Now, these guys. They didn’t look like cops, in their expensive suits, but they acted like cops, barging in on him when he was just trying to chill. One of the men smiled at him with a cold line that stretched across his face. His short, white, crew-cut reminded Tonto of an albino he had known, but couldn’t remember his name. Alpha something. “Well,” said the man, “we’re not cops, so maybe you can tell u...

                                                             Chapter 4 - Media Blitz Previously...Chapter 3 Beneath the City “…so who is this strange new menace to our city? Does he have a name? Where did he come from? And what are the police doing about it?” * Tonto Ramirez watches the glow of the television. Vaguely, he sees the pretty television reporter…what’s her name…Covington…Marsha Covington…but he’s not listening to her. What does she have to say that’s so important for him to hear? He doesn’t care about the news…he doesn’t care about anything anymore…not since that night… Besides, with the amount of morphine coursing through his system to stem to pain of his missing leg, it would be hard to follow the words coming out of her, filtered through the speakers. Tonto knows who she is talking about, though, a...

                                               Cut Throat Chapter 3 - Beneath the City Chapter 2 Hell Hound “You know who I am?” The patient’s eyes stared up at Detective Bledsoe. Tonto Ramirez’s erected a wall of stubbornness behind his drug-widened pupils. The harsh lights of the hospital room brought the bandages wrapped around the stumps of his leg and throat into a clear, antiseptic focus. The eyes went left, then right, then back to Bledsoe. Tonto nodded. “That’s right,” Bledsoe said. “I’m the one they call the Hell Hound, because I always get what I want. You may not know it, but right now you’re lucky. Not because you survived when none of your homies did, if you call what this is surviving.” The detective’s eyes went down to where Tonto’s leg should have been and came up again. “No. You’re lucky because you have something I need. Information....

Cut Throat Chapter 2 : Hell Hound Chapter One: Enter, Cut Throat L.A. is a dirty city. It’s even dirtier when a high rise on Spring Street is filled with dead bodies. Slit throats and decapitations. Severed arms and legs. Puddles of blood you have to step through just to get a look at the victims. If you consider members of the toughest gang in L.A. to be victims. A lot of people don’t. Even other cops. Got what they deserved , is whispered through the hall as I tally up the body count. Twenty-five corpses. Twenty-five men and women, slaughtered, without a judge or jury. “What do you think, Detective Bledsoe?” I turn to the uniform on my right and shake my head. He doesn’t care what I think. I can see it through the smug smile he wears in the shadows of the blood-splattered hallway. “I think there’s a lot of dead people in here,” I say. Another uniform leads me up to the conference room. We step over bodies to climb the steps in the stairwell and come ou...

                                        Cut Throat Chapter One: Enter, Cut Throat!! The media has named him Fool Killer. A name her earned on the streets through the rampant murder of rival gang members and innocents. His gang, the Southside Bloodletters, has taken residence in this abandoned office building on Spring Street. The lookouts posted on the roof are useless. They never see me coming. The last thing they feel is icy hot pain as my blades slip between their ribs. Below is darkness. They think this is their base. Their sanctuary. But they are wrong. Darkness is my domain. The halls are littered with refuse. The stench of rot permeates. The one coming towards me reeks of alcohol and marijuana. He steps right in front of me, passes me, and never sees me. Unless the eyes of the dead can see. I go from floor to floor, my twin katana blades singing their de...

originally published in TALES OF THE WEIRD WEST  #5 by Rainfall Chapbooks 2017 Lester scratched himself and gazed out on the world with fresh eyes.  A distant sun rose from the east, casting its pale gold across the prairie grass.  He smelled the coffee and bacon his mother was cooking over the fire back near the wagons.  They had traveled over a thousand miles, riding in those two wagons.  Lester and his mother and father and two brothers.  His little sister, the baby of the family, had died shortly after setting out from Montgomery, casting a shadow over their long journey. Lester had learned to cherish this brief time of day, when he could be alone, just to watch the sun rise and not have to think about anything.   Just breathe the air and feel the soft warmth of sleep slowly receding. “Come on now,” his father called to him.   “Eat your breakfast and get the teams hitched.” Lester turned back to the wagons.   His two brot...