Beetlebottom #10

Desperate Prayers and Voodoo Curses

The mechanic got lucky and retrieved his pot of beans from the top of the woodstove before they burned to the bottom. 

He put a couple scoops of beans into an old bowl returned to his yard where David Lee Royce was crumpled up on the lawn.

 The repair shop blocked the view to the road, so the mechanic had no reason to rush any decisions.

He didn't know who this man was, but he definitely knew his type. This large leather jacket, tattoo man was going to bring a new kind of poison into Beetlebottom, and Beetlebottom…of all places, didn't need that kind of trouble.

The old mechanic had moved into town about ten years ago from other parts, that were as yet ill-defined. His services in auto repair were welcome by all in and around Beetlebottom.

 He did his work and pretty much kept to himself.

But now, the mechanic had several things in his possession that he really didn't want or need.

There was a dead asshole laying on his lawn with a revolver in his waistband. 

A shiny new muscle car sitting in his shop, looking unlike anything else in town….and

two duffles full of pills and plastic baggies.

Plus a nice looking Remington shotgun.

The bowl of baked beans really hit the spot. 

The mechanic was going to have to clean things up and get back to work.

 People needed their cars fixed, and they didn't appreciate waiting too long.

The mechanic went to the trunk of the car and pulled the duffle bags out and carried them across the shop floor.

Grabbing handfuls of the contents, he tossed them a few at a time into the pot bellied woodstove.

The fire got blowtorch hot, and the cast iron stove started to glow orange. It took a while to burn everything. While he waited for the flames to die down enough for another load to be added, he did other chores.

The shop had an overhead hoist that he used to lift engine blocks and car transmissions.

The hoist ran on a rail attached to the rafters. The rail stuck out the back of the shop about six feet. It ran across the shop floor and stuck out another six feet into the front driveway. The hoist was on rollers, so that he could take a new engine block from the front to the back side of the shop without too much backbreaking work.

Today, the overhead shop hoist had a new task.

With a bit of effort, the mechanic got a couple nylon straps wrapped around the dead biker asshole.

He then attached the hook of the hoist to the straps, and started to winch the body across the lawn.

When David Lee Royce's lifeless body got right underneath the hoist beam, the winch pulled him right up clear of the ground.

The mechanic pushed this whole dangling mess over towards the back of the muscle car. The steel rollers up on the overhead beam made this task fairly easy.

With a bit of pushing and shoving, and rearranging things, the mechanic reversed the winch and lowered the dead biker dude into the trunk of his own car.

 This long haired man, had a pretty big frame, so getting him all tucked neatly into the car trunk took a bit of doing.

When the mechanic had burned all the contents of the duffle bags, he added a couple chunks of firewood and turned the stove damper down to the low setting.

Way out back of the mechanic's acreage was an old quarry from the old days.

 Nobody worked it anymore, and a lot of locals used it for a unofficial garbage dump.

There was an grown over access road just down the way, that went pretty much from the mechanic's place to the old quarry pit.

The mechanic went out and checked the road for traffic, and then opened the shop doors. He started the muscle car, which was in fact running kind of rough.

He opened the car hood, and tapped the carburetor with the handle of a screwdriver. that got the carburetor float unstuck.

 The big V8 sat there and rumbled out a nice even rhythm after that quick fix.

Just as the mechanic backed out of the shop and on to the dirt road, it started to rain.

The mechanic drove up the road a ways and then turned on to the old quarry access road.

There was tall grass and alder tree branches reaching in from the sides of the old road.

The muscle car slipped and slithered around the twisting road with the tree branches scraping at the sides.

The mechanic felt good about the 240 lb body in the trunk adding extra traction on the greasy road.

The rain was coming down fairly hard, obviously some sort of squall was blowing through.

The old quarry site was a big hole in the ground. The guys that had worked there, had hauled material out for years.

Now there was a big wide hole that was forty feet deep.

The road ran right up to the edge of the big hole.

 Every local that need to know…knew that big hole sat at the end of this access road. This was also at the end of the road that went past the bootlegger's house.

It was quite literally, the end of the road.

The young, shit for brains, Billy Brown found that out last night, the hard way.

Last night, while the social gathering at the bootlegger's house was in full swing, Billy Brown got into smoking some new stuff that a buddy passed along.

There was something extra in that joint that gave a mule kick to Billy's already weak mind.

When Billy went outside last night, he wandered across the grass and marvelled at all the pretty lights that swirled around him. 

People that he couldn't see were talking to him, spouting great wisdoms and ideas.

Billy got out to the road and started to walk towards the voices, trying to talk back to them.

The voices pulled Billy Brown away from the house and deep into the forest. At some point, Billy Brown couldn't figure out which direction the house was.

So, Billy decided that he knew best and marched further away from the house, and deeper into the forest.

From time to time, Billy would stagger left or right and then fall into the bush in the side of the road.

Each time, undeterred, he got up, took a couple puffs, then staggered into the dark.

Billy Brown thought he was making good time, the voices he heard even thought so.

Billy Brown took a cigarette from his jacket pocket , and was still walking, and fishing around for matches, when he fell head long into the abandoned quarry.

So, like I said, the locals used the old pit for a garbage dump.

At the bottom where Billy fell in, was old washing machines and fridges, a few broken bicycles and a few rusty car frames.

Billy fell badly onto the random piles of garbage and scrap metal.

After the dark rush of falling, Billy hit hard on the corner of a fridge that someone tossed down years ago.

Billy broke a leg, and ankle, and an arm. He hit his head pretty hard and broke his jaw.

Billy Brown laid there all night and into the morning in agonizing and inhuman amounts of pain.

This morning, to add to the misery, it was pouring rain.

As the waves of pain ebbed from awful to horrendous, Billy took to pleading with the heavens for help, some sort of relief. Anything, send help, send a messenger, something…just anything to get him out of his predicament.

The mechanic pulled his collar up to shield himself from the pelting rain. He took the shotgun from the muscle and laid it on the ground.

With the dead biker stashed in the trunk, the mechanic put the car in neutral, released the hand brake, and gave a good hearty shove.

It was a bit downhill to the edge of the quarry , so the car picked up a bit of speed as it rolled.

Billy Brown prayed to the gods above for salvation and the end of his suffering.

His prayers were answered when a big red muscle car came careening off the top edge of the pit, and came right at him.

The last thing that shit for brains Billy Brown saw in this world was the chrome grill of a Detroit muscle car falling out of the heavens.

The mechanic heard the muffled impact through the rain downpour. He didn't need to check on the results. 

What the mechanic missed, was that when the car hit, the doors and trunk flew open.

The body of David Lee Royce catapulted out and landed with a wet sack thud on the gravel of the quarry floor.

The car rolled once and exposed the the mangled dead body of Billy Brown.

The mechanic picked up the shotgun and trudged through the rain and mud towards the bootlegger's house..