Blue Meat Blues: Chapter One

“Blue Meat Blues” is a hardboiled, post-apocalyptic piece of splatter-pulp. You can read the synopsis here — and if you “Recommend” the synopsis, I just may win Medium’s NaNoWriMo Synopsis contest. And that would be just great.

The sky was coming over orange, the tar was starting to melt, and my teeth were vibrating from the blues.

I broke into a careful jog — the road was still slick with oil, but the air was cool and only faintly spiked with the taste of burning hair.

From memory it was… two blocks up and one block over; beneath the billboard with the tar-scrawled man, etched into the brown canvas.

It was quiet. So quiet. The mute thud of my footsteps on the asphalt, the beating of my heart and the hiss of tar gnawing at my boots.

I’d seen nothing move since I left the bar.

Just the droplets of tar thrown up by my feet and the tyre iron thudding like an anxious metronome against the back of my legs.

I guess the world was still winding up.

I slowed a little at the corner, threw a cautious glance around the brickwork and pulled the tyre iron from my belt.

Nothing. Just a decaying billboard, cut diagonally by a thin stream of black smoke, framed by the alleyway.

I stopped and flattened myself against the wall, searching out my heartbeat with greasy fingers.

The tar-painted man on the billboard watched over the scene with feigned concern.

There was something unsettling about him. Something vaguely nauseating.

As if… after years of sepia silence — this was the shocking conclusion the world had come to deliver.

Maybe it was the blues. Maybe it was the shine.

Maybe the cumulative effects of drinking brown water had finally gotten to my brain.

I don’t know.

Bad omens.

I closed my eyes and shook my head violently.

I wasn’t there to speculate on symbolism or to become some feral art critic.

I was there for justice.

Maybe not justice… more satisfaction.

Not even that.

I was there to hurt somebody. Badly. That was the headline.

I flipped the tyre iron, caught it and flipped it again, straining my ears.

The distant crackling of a fire.
The slap of the tyre iron hitting my palm.
The quavering hum as it spun in the air.

The smoke was cutting from low and to the left.

There should be just one feral there.

That was what she’d said.

One feral — a man. Tar-burn across half his face.
Another white-meat maniac.

He’d killed a few people down by the river.

I mean… so had I.

But here we were.

And he had a… what was it?

A machete? A shovel? Something sharp.

I remembered thinking: “Be careful, be careful” but…

I’d been distracted by my own reflection in the off-white of the woman’s eye and I had missed what she was saying.

I had looked down at her and asked her to repeat it — but I was choking on the rot in her breath and my words were lost in the obscene swelling of her stomach.

The air was growing thick with tar fumes. I flipped the tyre iron one last time and stepped out into the alley.

No more distractions. Climb down out of your head.

Wipe your palms. Tyre iron in hand.

And go.

Ten aching strides — the lactic acid in my calves raced into my stomach, my lungs filled with exhaust and my whole body was singing.

Beautiful, sweet burning. My forearms twitched painfully.

I hit the corner of the alley and took a blind turn to the left, eyes filling with smoke, tyre iron wide and to the right.

I took a wild leap over the fire pit, catching a lungful of smoke, and stumbled awkwardly — landing with one foot on bare skin.

This was it.

He scrambled to his feet — his face twisting in shock.
I took two careful steps backward.
Tears were running down my cheeks.

I saw the veins writhing in his neck, his eyes locked on mine — his skull bisected by a grim purple scar.

And I waited. Counting heartbeats. His mouth opened and closed, madly attempting to process what was happening.

I watched his hands for some signal, some violent flag-fall, stretching this tiny window of excitement for as long as possible.

He crouched just slightly, something in the fire popped, a sharp hiss as droplets of tar spray onto the ground, and I swung the tyre iron wide and caught him in the temple.

The vibrations ran up my arm, a sick thud — he let out a cry choked with rust and I kicked him into the wall.

He stumbled and his legs fold beneath him — hands like spiders — searching for some way to defend himself.

If he was lucky, he would still be half-asleep — enduring some horrible nightmare.

I steadied myself and watched him twist like a marionette in the dust.

And I was lost for just a second — the heat of the morning sky on my neck, the rush of blood in my ears. His hands, his fingers, biceps and triceps stretching and retracting. Sick hypnosis.

And from somewhere outside the sphere of this self-indulgent reverie he threw a wide, stinging hay-maker that caught me in the neck, and for a moment I was locked in deafening red, choking on a mouthful of bile.

I staggered backward, trying to shake off the shock.

Don’t think about blood clots. Don’t think about crushed arteries. Don’t think about your brain slowly starving — drying out and crumpling like paper.

I could see every knot in his torso. Every screaming blood vessel that was trying desperately to continue their existence. Every muscle twitching with adrenaline.

He kicked out with a long, sharp leg that caught me on the hip, and I threw myself forward, firing my knee up into his kidneys.

I put my foot down behind his legs and shot an elbow into his face. His broken teeth tore into my skin. The sleeve of my jacket folded into the wound and it felt like sand on raw nerves.

He stumbled back — all frantic claws and saliva, and I pushed him into the wall — swiping his arms away with one hand and bringing the tyre iron down on his head with the other.

Again and again. Wild, clumsy slashing. Knocking chunks of brick from the wall, catching him on the temple, the bridge of the nose, his wide, bald scalp.

And he was sinking. Quickly sinking. Folding down into the dust. His head split open and weeping, his fingers impotent, clutching at my jacket.

I hit him again with the tyre iron — three times in quick succession — bam bam bam — diagonally across the scalp. Break apart the hemispheres. Sever the connections. Smash the pipes.

One final exhalation. The air was thick with the smell of earth. Wet earth. Twisting flowers. The smell after true rain.

I pinned his wrist to the ground with my boot and bent down — bringing my face in line with his.

There was nothing there.
Stale air.
Thick eyes swam behind dark water.

He looked so natural.
In perfect symbiosis with the world.

As if he was dead to begin with.
And I…

I was just some sick, timely reminder.

I let him slide down the wall and I crouched, tyre iron resting against my boot.

The fire continued to sputter. My teeth continued to hum. My chest was hot and my heart was beating heavy.

Silence. I counted my heartbeats.
Silence. I drew a vacant spiral in the dust.
Silence.

Good morning, world.

I kicked dust into the fire and watched it grow damp and black.
The embers sputtered and gradually fell silent.

He had been sleeping in the dirt, under a thin piece of wood propped against the wall, the roof stained black.

I looked for the shovel. I looked for the machete. But there was nothing.

Just one decaying tin can half-filled with black water.

No food. No defining possessions.

Who was this man?

Just another feral twisted up with white meat.

I tapped his pockets with the tyre iron. Silence.

Goddamnit.

I threaded the tyre iron back into my belt and kicked the tin can.

The water disappeared into the dust.

The tin was old and brittle. I pressed it down with my boot until it buckled and folded.

I carefully pried it open again and repeat the action until it split into two jagged halves.

Goddamnit.

I wrapped my sleeve around my hand and picked up the sharpest half, crawling over to the body.

He didn’t seem much like a feral anymore.

He didn’t seem much like anything anymore. Just another slab of meat.

A sad a’la carte product of a burnt-out world.

I held his head down with my boot and spat a tight stream of bile into the ashes of the fire, stretching out his ear between my thumb and forefinger.

The jagged tin sliced through the cartilage without resistance and a thin, diluted line of blood snaked down his face.

The ear was purple and pocked with corrosion.

That would be proof enough.

And if not?

Well… just one more candidate for the meat-bin.