The Brothers Crunk (7 page)

“
Hurry, we have to get through before it closes!” Vandenboom shouts. The Devils hop in their vehicles. Krebb tosses Qoser’s cue-ball eye into his glove compartment. They fire their ignitions and, one by one, drive into the Doom Magnetic.

● ● ●

“
What the fack is that, man?” Reynold yells, pointing at the large black hole in the distance.

“
Fuck if I know, but look, there’s your boy and it looks like he’s about to drive
through
the goddamn thing!” Pete shouts.

They watch as Vandenboom and the Damned Dirt Devils drive into the void. After a few seconds, the void begins to shrink.

“
Shit man, I think it’s closing! We have to go faster!” Reynold begins kicking at the sides of the ostrich, pulling at its feathers, anything he can think of to get the bird sprinting.

It works.

They dive into the void, which closes around them at the waist. On the other side there are bright lights, wet streets, and tall buildings. A city. A
big
city.

Reynold grabs the only thing within his reach, the pole of a streetlamp, and heaves. Him, Pete, and the ostrich all slop out of the void and tumble to the wet street below.

They know exactly where they are. They’re in the biggest city on the entire Planet Japan.

SIXTEEN

TOKYO!

Jools Dethbryte sits on the top floor of THE BLITZ, a 178-story building towering over Tokyo. She admires the beauty of the city from above. However, she is not really ‘sitting’, per se—more like
lying
on a large circular bed. And she is not really a ‘she’ either, more like an
it
. She doesn’t have any sex organs.
Not a one.
She doesn’t even have legs, just one short, fat tongue of skin extending out from her waist. She is a space slug—or an Edokkolug, to be exact. She prefers to be called a she, even though her voice is clearly masculine.

“
So sorry to bother you,” a small Japanese man says, as he speed-walks into the room, “but have you been watching the news?” Ironically, the man speaks quite effeminately.

“
No, I haven’t, blah. I’ve been admiring the view. You know that’s what I like to do after my scrubbing, blah!” Dethbryte croaks, slow and low. “Why?”

“
Ah, ah, ah. Just see for yourself!” The man picks up the remote for the television and aims it at the wall. The wall hums and suddenly an image appears across it.

“—
happened around three o’clock this morning in downtown Tokyo. Eye-witness reports state that eight figures passed through the Doom Magnetic before it closed. Five of them have been identified as Doon Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils—yes, you are hearing me right—Doon Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils seem to have returned to Tokyo. The other three have yet to be identified,” says the news anchorman. A series of cell phone pictures flash on the screen showing Vandenboom and his crew blazing down the streets in their vehicles. At the bottom of the screen, a red banner reads: ‘BREAKING NEWS: VANDENBOOM RETURNS! DOOM MAGNETIC ALIVE AND WELL!’

Dethbryte narrows her eyes, but doesn’t shy them away from the television screen. “This can’t be! Krumm, how the fuck can this be, blah?!”

“
Well, it appears as if your television prison wasn’t enough to hold him, my dear,” Krumm says, smirking.

“
Oh, don’t try and pin all of this on me, blah! You liked the television idea, too!”

“
Yes, but you used such a fucking
ancient
television! I was the one who suggested we use one of the newer models, but noooo, you didn’t want to fork over the cash! You get what you pay for, cheapskate. I hope you’re happy.”

“
How many times do we have to go through this, blah? The newer models are too thin! We wouldn’t have been able to cram him inside, even if we stuck a broomstick in his ass!”

“
What? How does a broomstick in his ass help anything?”

“
You know what I mean, blah.”

“
No, I don’t know what you mean. Shoving a stick up his ass does
what
exactly?”

“
It helps with the cramming.”

“
What is it that you are cramming? I mean, we zapped his spirit into a TV using lightning rods!”

“
It’s a figure of speech. Look, you know what I mean, blah. Fucking shut it!”

Krumm purses his lips out and rocks his hips angrily before turning his back to her, again focusing his attention on the television screen.

“
He was all like big and purple and *
bleep*
. I mean, he still looks the same. Big teeth and *
bleep*
. Scary as hell,” an eye-witness reports. “And what about the others, the ones that came after the Damned Dirt Devils? Any idea of who they might be?” the reporter asks. Pictures of Reynold, Pete, and the ostrich scroll across the screen. “I don’t *
bleep*
know, man, but one of ’em was a *
bleep*
-ing pile of meat . . .”

“
Pause it, blah. Hurry!” Dethbryte orders. Krumm closes his eyes, annoyed at the request, but obeying regardless. He holds the remote up and presses the pause button. The screen freezes on the picture of Reynold, Pete, and the ostrich.

“
Bring them to me!” Dethbryte commands.

“
Them? Really? Why?” Krumm asks.

Dethbryte’s eyes immediately change colors—the left bright red and the right a deep purple. “I said bring them to me or I’ll be cramming a broomstick up
your
ass!” she screams, pink saliva spraying in all directions.

“
Okay, okay, boss. Calm your noodle!” Krumm says, tossing the remote onto the bed. “I’ll send out the boys.”

Krumm leaves the room. Dethbryte’s eyes return to the same yellowish color they were before. She turns back to face the window. The beautiful city she had admired only moments ago suddenly looks dirty. She reaches out her stubby arms and yanks on the drawstring. The blinds snap shut.

SEVENTEEN

FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES

The clouds hang like giant pink cherries in the purple night sky. Reynold is saddled up on his ostrich, admiring the beauty of the sky from the bowels of the city; it is the only place they could run to where the questions, the lights, the cameras wouldn’t follow.

The bowels are even worse than the barrio. The streets aren’t paved, the buildings are collapsing or collapsed, and the ground is half-covered in the city’s waste due to poor plumbing and the fact that no plumber would ever consider taking a job in the area. The people here are dangerous. There are no streetlamps. If someone were to run into trouble out here, the last thing they’d want to do is see it coming.
That’s much worse.
Seeing and smelling a place like this makes the cherry night sky that much more beautiful.

“
Hey, Rey, how long you planning on hanging around here, man? The rats here are the size of bloodhounds and they’re all giving me the ol’ salacious eye.” Pete hangs in the fish net, dangling off the ostrich, wary of the darkness.

“
Just until we come up with a plan to catch up with Vandenboom,” Reynold answers.

“
Vandenboom, eh?” a serpenty voice calls from somewhere in the dark. A small Japanese man, draped in dirty rags and covered with filth, steps out of the darkness and into the moonlight. “You the folks on the television tonight, yes?”

The ostrich jumps back at the sight of him. Reynold reaches his hand behind his back as if reaching for a weapon, even though he is unarmed.

“
Back off, old man!” yells Reynold.

“
Heh heh, do your worst.”

Reynold tenses up the muscles in his arm, as if clinching his ‘weapon’ makes the threat any more believable.

“
Why are you looking for Vandenboom?” the old man asks.

“
Depends on who is asking.”

“
I am asking.”

“
But who are you?”

“
Who are
you
?”

Reynold rolls his eye. “He’s got my brother.”

“
Kidnap? It’s not like Vandenboom to kidnap.”

“
No not kidn— Wait! You
know
Vandenboom?” Reynold steps down off the ostrich.

“
Oh yes, there are not many in Tokyo who do not. Ever since the explosion . . .”

“
Explosion? What explosion?”

“
The old Blitzkrieg factory. Him and his Damned Dirt Devils leveled it. Since then it has been swallowed up by earth. But that was decades ago. After Dethbryte found out about the explosion—”

“
Dethbryte?” Reynold interrupts.

“
She is the head of Blitzkrieg Industries. One bad mamma-jamma. If she’s pissed, then everyone in the range of one hundred miles knows it. Blitzkrieg manufactures war puppets, monsters. You see, Vandenboom blew up Blitzkrieg for personal reasons. Because they manufactured him . . . him and his Damned Dirt Devils. They made hundreds of these war puppets, but something went wrong with this batch—something that made them become self-aware. They instantly rebelled against Dethbryte and Blitzkrieg resulting in a battle that lasted for many years, ending with the destruction of the Blitzkrieg building. Dethbryte soon had her revenge, though. Just a few hours after the explosion, she captured Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils, stripped their lifeforce from their bodies, and sent them off to God-knows-where trapped in little television sets.”

“
Well, now it makes sense why he didn’t bother with killin’ us, eh, Petey?” Reynold says.

The old man looks around to see who Reynold is talking to, slightly confused.

“
So, do you have any idea where we might be able to catch Vandenboom then?” Reynold asks the old man.

“
Well, if he still has bad blood with Dethbryte, I’d say he’s headed toward THE BLITZ—the new Blitzkrieg building.”

“
And where is that exactly?”

“
You can’t miss it. It’s the tallest building in all of Tokyo. You can see it from anywhere.”