Write-On Prompt: One Clean Slice

 

Note: Last night was Prompt night at Write On. I turned the prompt into the gruesome little scene below. I did like the character created have started thinking about how this could be tweaked. Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts if you have any. 😊.

 Prompt: Start your story with someone walking into a gas station.

 Syd kicked the doors opens, her black boots smudging the plexiglass as a giant pink bubble inflated between her lips. Behind the counter, Reggie stopped counting coins to give as change to some twelve-year-old who looked to be filling his stash of candy and caffeine. Two tall hombres in cowboy hats and denim tuxedos were standing before the bank of refrigerated doors on the opposite side of the station, likely deciding which case of cheap beer they’d split that night. The modern American saloon was the roadside gas station. The gossip. The games. The fighting. Gone were the sticky wood floors, the dancing girls and the six-shooters replaced by Little Debbie, Big Gulp Soda Machines and the semi-automatic death machines every third idiot thought they needed to riddle deer carcasses with seventy bullets in twenty seconds.

 “Where is she?” Syd announced. Reggie pointed toward the pizza kitchen, he didn’t want any trouble here. The hombres glanced from the wall of beer, wads of tobacco filling their bottom lips. Syd wondered if they knew of her, maybe heard the stories, probably not believing that anyone, especially a woman could be so brutal.

 “Martha Rose, get your ass on out here,” Syd called. A clattering of pizza pans rattled from behind the spinning trolley filled with day-old slices. The sausage on top of one was green, Syd wasn’t sure if that was intended or if mold had started to form. She didn’t much care, she wasn’t there to eat.

 Martha Rose plowed through the bat-wing doors like a linebacker through an offensive line. The woman was in her forties, gray haired, barely five-foot tall and easily two-hundred-and-fifty pounds. Clutched in her sauced stained hands was a pizza cutter, its round blade splattered with melted mozzarella.

 “Don’t you come another step closer, Syd Bannon! I might not be as quick as I once was, but I know right where to cut to make sure you bleed too much before anyone can make you stop bleeding.”

 “Tsk, tsk,” Syd said, walking over to the end cap of the nearest aisle. It was filled with Twinkees and Cupcakes and all sorts of other treats filled with sugar and God knew what else. People thought of Syd as evil, or at least the hand of evil, as she was the one who Luke sent out to collect debts, but she bet that Hostess and Little Debbie killed more folks in a minute than the dangerous Syd Bannon could in ten lifetimes.

 “I mean it, Syd.” Martha Rose waved the pizza cutter around. Syd glanced once at the kid at the counter, sending a clear message. The boy scooped his candy and cola against his chest and pushed through the doors into the night without getting his change. The two hombres in cowboy hats followed without needing any encouragement.

 “Lock that door,” Syd said. Reggie complied, a hurt look crossed Martha Rose’s chubby face. Never had she considered that her co-worker could betray her so. The dumb ox hadn’t learned that everyone around here had debts to Luke.

 “I’ve known you all your life,” Martha Rose said. “Babysat you when you were in diapers.”

 “I remember you doing a whole lot of yelling,” Syd answered. “Funny how uppity some folks get when they have just a glimmer of authority. Like to hit my ass with a belt, too, if I recall right.”

 “Just when you deserved it,” Martha Rose said. “I didn’t like doing it.”

 Syd saw her own face in the security mirror. The bones of her skull seemed to push against her skin like they were horns trying to poke out. Her scar ran from above her right eye down that side of her face and then looped under chin, stopping just above the jugular. She kept her hair trimmed to a stubble, it was dark with a faint cowlick in the back. Her teeth, what she had left of teeth, were yellow. Hygiene wasn’t a necessity in her line of work.

 “Hmm, maybe I did deserve it. Seemed like justice, I suppose. Sooner or later, we all get what we deserve, don’t we, Martha Rose.”

 “Please, Syd.” Martha Rose cried.

 “You’re six months due on a ten-thousand-dollar debt,” Syd said, tired of seeing this woman’s fat tears running down her fat face. “Our patience has run out!”

 “Those games are rigged! You know it’s true, Syd! Luke has ’em set up so we all lose our money in ’em.”

 “If you know that, you’re pretty stupid to play them.”

 A look of defeat came across the woman’s face which was followed instantly by frantic desperation. She charged, the pizza cutter waving in front of her. Syd had time to roll her eyes before adjusting her-own weight, dodging the cutter, and then tripping Martha Rose. The woman fell with a wet smack on the tiled floor. Syd climbed upon her back, and pressed down on the back of Martha’s hand, forcing her to release the cutter. Syd grabbed the cutter, and then yanked Martha Rose’s head back by the hair, revealing the folds of her throat.

 “Goodbye, Martha Rose.” Syd didn’t need more than one cut, even though the cutter’s blade was nearly dull.

 She left Reggie a crumpled hundred on the counter after he unlocked the door. The blood would pool and stain the floor, and he’d have a hell of a time cleaning the station once the police arrived and did their dance. The police would wait a few minutes for Syd to be well clear. Everyone, after all, was in debt to Luke one way or another. They weren’t going to pinch his best henchman, or henchwoman, as it was.

 The night air was heavy with humidity after she kicked the door open. She reached into her denim vest, removed a pocket notebook with a stub of a pencil stuck between the pages. She crossed out Martha Rose’s name. Below it was another name. Burt Logan. She knew she’d find him down at the marina. She revved her motorcycle’s engine once before turning on the highway that led toward the river.