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DOOM MAGNETIC! - CHAPTER NINE:
ENOUGH SEEKING
William Pauley III
“Pssst…”
Maundin awakens to find himself thrown inside a prison cell with iron bar doors and paper walls. Must be a Japanese prison. It’s dark. The only light seems to be coming from somewhere down the hall, illuminating everything around him, except his cell. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep.
“Pssst…” Someone calls again from the cell next to his. “Hey, buddy…you got a light?” says a female voice.
Maundin digs inside his pockets and removes a silver Zippo. He walks over to the paper wall and pushes the lighter to it. The paper splits under pressure. Her hand is dark, sexy and smooth, and it reaches up to meet his. He eyes her, or at least what he can see of her, through the slit in the wall.
She takes the lighter.
“Thanks, sugar,” she says. Her voice is sexy and slow, channeling Rita Hayworth or some other classy actress from the 1940’s, but with a nice southern twang. Maundin hears the shink sound of the Zippo opening. The orange glow of the flame causes shadows to dance on the wall, but only for a few seconds, and they’re gone again.
“You know…I’ve got some good shit over here…if’n you’re interested?” Her voice now sounds more slurred than sexy.
“Good shit? What d’you mean ‘good shit’?”
“I mean good shit, that’s what I mean. Old crow. Grandpa’s cough medicine. You know…hooch.”
“Hooch?”
“Booze, baby! I gots me plenty of it over here. Want some?” The woman rummages through a pile of assorted items that are spread across her prison cot—brushes, makeup compacts, lipstick, syringes, empty pill cases, a bag of coke, and several jars of hooch.
“You want strawberry or peach flavored, doll?” she shouts from her cot.
“Uh, either one’ll suit me just fine, ma’am.”
“Aw shit, don’t start that ma’am crap, you’ll make me feel old. I ain’t old, ya know. Do you know how old I am?” She grabs the peach hooch and walks back toward the paper wall.
“No, uh, I don’t reckon I do.”
“C’mon, guess!”
Maundin peeks in through the slit in the paper wall. “I can’t right see your face, it’s too dark in your cell.”
“Here…” the woman begins to rip the slit in the paper wall down even further, but stumbles over herself and comes tumbling through, right into Maundin’s arms.
“Jesus H. Christ! You okay, lady?”
The woman mumbles something under her breath about spilling her hooch, then kisses Maundin on the neck. Maundin pulls away and, in the process, discovers a familiar tattoo on her wrist. A tiny red lightning bolt.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Where’d you get that there tattoo?” Maundin asks.
“That’s classified. I don’t hav—” Her eyes roll back in her head and she begins to trail off again. Maundin jerks the woman up to her feet and repeats his question.
“Where did you get this fucking tattoo?!”
“What’s it to you, chump?”
Maundin turns his head and shows the woman that he has the same tattoo on his neck.
“THE VOICE?” she whispers.
“THE VOICE.”
“Are you…Maundin?” Her eyes light up like two 40-watt bulbs.
“Yes, ma’am, I am. And you are?”
“Vonna. I’m your partner. THE VOICE sent me to help you transport the purple television, but I got jumped by—”
“Sourpuss,” Maundin interrupts. “Yeah, she told me all ‘bout it. Nice lil’ trick, too. Got us both good, she did.”
Just then his cell lights up brighter than the noonday sun. Maundin and Vonna are standing, shielding their eyes, as two shadowy figures step in front of the cell door. They unlock and slide the iron doors aside, taking both Maundin and Vonna out by their wrists.
“Where the fuck are you taking us?” Vonna shouts, blinded by the intensity of the overhead lights.
The man holding her looks back and replies, in the thickest of Japanese accents:
“The Smoke Unit.”
Paid subscribers! The next chapter of this story will be posted on December 13th! Stay tuned for The Smoke Unit!
Enough Seeking
© William Pauley III, 2009
All rights reserved.
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