THE RUNNER/SCREENPLAY - BRIAN R. LUNDIN (read an ebook week .txt) 📗
- Author: BRIAN R. LUNDIN
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get hurt.
A woman started to scream and another hooded man hit her in the mouth with the butt of a shotgun. Yow Moon and Chin joined the crowd of gamblers herded into the center of the room. Yow heard a twang and saw the man who had hit the woman drop his weapon and fall to the floor, an arrow protruded from his neck. Two more quick twangs and two other hooded men fell. Before the robbers could react armed Samba’s, Detective Baxter and other police officers surrounded them. In the confusion, Yow and Chin slipped out and headed to their car parked in the alley behind the club. Jerome and Ted hurried to the casino as the police officers were handcuffing the hooded men and someone had covered the three dead men on the floor with a drape.
TED
Where is Madame Bourneis and Marque? They were right behind us a minute ago.
The evening was deadly hot, the air stifling. 47th Street is a busy street, but the alleys are dark, dangerous and foreboding. The sickening smells of rotting garbage, feces, dead rats and urine foul the air. As Yow and Chin hurried to Yow’s vehicle, the neighborhood dogs started barking breaking the silence in the dark alley. The neighborhood rats scampered beneath the garbage cans to avoid this human intrusion into their turf and Chin heard a quiet guttural growl.
CHIN
What’s the fuck was that?
Chin pulled out his handgun.
YOW
Some fuckin’ alley cat!
A brown and white pit-bull leaned out of a third-floor window and would not stop barking his short stout body halfway-in and half-out the partially raised window. When the two men got closer to the car, they heard what sounded like two growls, this time the growls were closer. Chin started fumbling with the car keys.
Oh my God!
Chin turned and looked into the yellow and black eyes of two snarling large black panthers with venom dripping from their long fangs. Yow was awestruck, he could not move or scream. He pulled his .45 automatic pistol, from his pants and both men fired point-blank into the creatures. The men looked at each other in amazement as the gunshots had no effect on the animals. Chin pulled a Bowie knife and started to run, but one of the animals lunged and knocked him to the ground. Chin screamed as the animal tore out his stomach. Yow, watched through tear strained and frightened eyes as the animal ate his friend. When he turned to look at the other animal, he saw the beautiful woman he had noticed earlier. She smiled at him and Yow felt a surge of relief, however, that relief was brief as the woman turned into the panther and jumped on him. Yow, felt a terrible pain as the animal ripped out his throat.
Commander Hollis was completing some paperwork when the Field Lieutenant notified him of the death of the two men in the alley. The Commander threw on his coat and hustled down the two flights of stairs to the police parking lot and yelled at the Desk Sergeant.
HOLLIS
Contact Sergeant Lundgrin!
SERGEANT
He’s waiting for you in the lot.
In the police parking lot, Sergeant Lundgrin had the passenger door open for the commander. Commander Hollis hurried through the lot where squad cars were clustered. One took off with its Mars light flashing, and the brightness of the stroboscopic blue light emphasized the overcast evening. The sergeant activated the high pitch siren and flashing lights as they sped to the scene. A barricade of blue and white squad cars and a fire department ambulance were parked at jagged angles cordoning off the dark alley between 47th Indiana Avenue and Michigan Avenue. The revolving blue lights of the police cars and the revolving red light of the ambulance gave off an eerie glow as a crowd of Saturday night partiers strained to see what had caused all the police activity. A shapely black woman in a red wig and a short black skirt was on her tiptoes trying to look over the shoulders of two large white police officers, a young woman pushing a baby stroller stopped and was busy talking with the other lookie-loos. A woman in yellow curlers looked down from the back porch of her second floor apartment holding a fried chicken leg in her flabby hand. A cluster of uniformed police officers crowded about, not letting anyone out or into the building and waiving the gathering crowd of onlookers away. In the still night air, the annoying and ear piercing sirens of police and emergency vehicles filled the air as television reporters prepared for their, on-the-air commentaries.
A rank stench; putrid with the smell of death seeped from the alley. Many of the reporters and their cameramen covered their mouths with their hands or handkerchiefs and gagged. One older police officer laughed as an attractive white female report, vomited. A trim and fit-looking young police officer named ELLIS and one pot-bellied older police officer named WILSON stood behind a yellow police tape preventing the curious spectator from entering the alley. Sergeant Lundgrin parked the vehicle behind a row of police cars and he and the commander bristly walked the half block to the alley. The Pitbull, in the third floor window was in frenzy, barking and growling at everyone who passed. The sergeant and commander passed a group of young men and women.
YOUNGMAN
Serve them chink, mutherfuckers right, what in the fuck they doing over here anyway.
A young man with a prison-yard physique glanced at one of the policemen.
OTHER YOUNG MAN
Yeah, that’s right! While you at it shoot that muthafucker’, barking-ass dog!
The commander and the sergeant ignored the comments and continued walking. When they arrived at the alley, they saw two uniform officers stationed at the mouth behind a yellow crime scene tape, twenty yards behind them were the two bodies. The older officer recognized Commander Hollis and Sergeant Lundgrin and held up the tape.
REGGIE
What happened?
OFFICER
What I’ve been told is that two Orientals were murdered by some kinda of animal, that’ all I know, but there was a piece of paper on each body with the numbers, 235.
REGGIE
235?
OFFICER
Yep, 235, what the fuck does that mean?”
REGGIE
In policy, that the number for death.
HOLLIS
Any witnesses?
OFFICER
None so far.
REGGIE
Who called it in?
OFFICER
That woman over there talking with the detectives.
A tall, shapely black woman, wearing a very short pink mini skirt, low cut blouse, blond wig and pink hip boots was talking to Detective Baxter as the commander and sergeant approached.
REGGIE
What you got Baxter?
BAXTER
This is Miss Kitty Denour, she found the bodies.
HOLLIS
I’m police commander Richard Hollis and this is Sergeant Reginald Lundgrin, what happened here?
The woman was visibly upset.
KITTY
I was walking through the alley with a client when we saw the bodies.
REGGIE
A client?
KITTY
A john, ok, we were going to take care of our business when we saw the bodies with their guts hanging out.
REGGIE
See anything else?
KITTY
No, my client hurriedly jogged out the alley, he said he was on probation and couldn’t get involved. I called the police from Chili Mac’s restaurant.
HOLLIS
Well whatever else you can remember tell the detective.
The commander passed the Crime Scene unit where the techs were about to begin processing the crime scene when Commander Hollis spotted Doctor Donna Wright leaning over the body taking photos, documenting the victims from every angle. Commander Hollis met Donna, over a dead body years ago. A thirteen-year-old drug addict had apparently died of an overdose in one of the vacant apartments in the Robert Taylor Homes. The police department wanted to write it off as just another black kid gone wrong, but Donna, against the orders from her superior, conducted an autopsy that revealed the young man had died, not from an overdose but had been murdered. A subsequent police investigation disclosed that the young man was a male prostitute and had been given a “hot shot,” a deadly combination of pure heroin. A white businessman from the suburbs was eventually arrested, charged and convicted of the homicide. For three years, Doctor Wright had been the city’s Chief Medical Examiner, which Hollis knew was an undeserving title since she virtually ran the office for her politically connected, overbearing and credit stealing Irish boss, Jerome T.Hogan who was the Coroner. Doctor Wright was a black woman in her mid-forty’s, overweight and brilliant. In Hollis’s book, Doctor Wright was the Office of the Coroner.
What you got doc?
WRIGHT
I’ve been to hundreds of homicide scenes and there is always a sense of compassion for the victims, but I have never seen anything like this before. These poor souls damn near were eaten alive.
SERGEANT
What you think happened?
WRIGHT
Excuse the language but fuck if I know. I was born and raised on a cattle ranch in Montana. We raised cows, sheep and goats. Every now and then, a coyote or a mountain lion would take one of the cattle. One day my dad and I found one of our cows in the meadows his stomach ripped out. The choice meat for wild animals is the heart, lungs and liver. This is what they eat first before finishing the rest of the carcass. These guys’ heart, liver and lungs are gone and there are bite marks all over their bodies, this is a new one for me.
Commander Hollis and Sergeant Lundgrin walked to the bodies being covered with a white plastic sheet by a medical technician.
HOLLIS
Could you please remove the sheets?
TECHNICIAN
A rail-thin, dirty-blond haired the tech kneeling on the ground said, without bothering to look up.
The Medical Examiner has already authorized the release of the bodies, let us finish our job and get the hell out of this fuckin’ alley. The whole area is highly infectious with all these fuckin’ rats running around. Smell like shit.
REGGIE
Get your skinny ass out the way, before I kick you in the ass.
The startled tech jumped to his feet and looked at the commander and the sergeants.
TECHNICIAN
Oh, I’m sorry.
The technician pulled back the sheet off Yow and Chin. The Commander and the sergeant knelt down and took a hard long look at Yow and Chin’s bloodstained clothes. Their bodies were lying side by side snarled in a freeze-frame of grotesque horror, their dried blood congealed and their faces frozen in the horrifying moments of their death. Bite marks covered their bodies; their head turned in an odd angle and their guts spilled into the dirty alley. Yow’s pony tail lay on the ground and looked as if it was bitten off. Chin’s wide apoplectic eyes were locked open and drops of dried blood were on his mutilated chin. Suddenly there was a sudden loud crack, like a gunshot in the alley. The reporters and cameramen jumped behind their vehicles, while the curious onlookers tried to find somewhere to run. The police officers started to laugh nervously.
OFFICER
Just rattraps, the Rodent Control Department put hundreds of them in the alleys.
HOLLIS
You think we have wild mountain lions roaming the alley in Chicago?
REGGIE
I don’t know what the hell you got, but these are animal bites.
Two muscular
A woman started to scream and another hooded man hit her in the mouth with the butt of a shotgun. Yow Moon and Chin joined the crowd of gamblers herded into the center of the room. Yow heard a twang and saw the man who had hit the woman drop his weapon and fall to the floor, an arrow protruded from his neck. Two more quick twangs and two other hooded men fell. Before the robbers could react armed Samba’s, Detective Baxter and other police officers surrounded them. In the confusion, Yow and Chin slipped out and headed to their car parked in the alley behind the club. Jerome and Ted hurried to the casino as the police officers were handcuffing the hooded men and someone had covered the three dead men on the floor with a drape.
TED
Where is Madame Bourneis and Marque? They were right behind us a minute ago.
The evening was deadly hot, the air stifling. 47th Street is a busy street, but the alleys are dark, dangerous and foreboding. The sickening smells of rotting garbage, feces, dead rats and urine foul the air. As Yow and Chin hurried to Yow’s vehicle, the neighborhood dogs started barking breaking the silence in the dark alley. The neighborhood rats scampered beneath the garbage cans to avoid this human intrusion into their turf and Chin heard a quiet guttural growl.
CHIN
What’s the fuck was that?
Chin pulled out his handgun.
YOW
Some fuckin’ alley cat!
A brown and white pit-bull leaned out of a third-floor window and would not stop barking his short stout body halfway-in and half-out the partially raised window. When the two men got closer to the car, they heard what sounded like two growls, this time the growls were closer. Chin started fumbling with the car keys.
Oh my God!
Chin turned and looked into the yellow and black eyes of two snarling large black panthers with venom dripping from their long fangs. Yow was awestruck, he could not move or scream. He pulled his .45 automatic pistol, from his pants and both men fired point-blank into the creatures. The men looked at each other in amazement as the gunshots had no effect on the animals. Chin pulled a Bowie knife and started to run, but one of the animals lunged and knocked him to the ground. Chin screamed as the animal tore out his stomach. Yow, watched through tear strained and frightened eyes as the animal ate his friend. When he turned to look at the other animal, he saw the beautiful woman he had noticed earlier. She smiled at him and Yow felt a surge of relief, however, that relief was brief as the woman turned into the panther and jumped on him. Yow, felt a terrible pain as the animal ripped out his throat.
Commander Hollis was completing some paperwork when the Field Lieutenant notified him of the death of the two men in the alley. The Commander threw on his coat and hustled down the two flights of stairs to the police parking lot and yelled at the Desk Sergeant.
HOLLIS
Contact Sergeant Lundgrin!
SERGEANT
He’s waiting for you in the lot.
In the police parking lot, Sergeant Lundgrin had the passenger door open for the commander. Commander Hollis hurried through the lot where squad cars were clustered. One took off with its Mars light flashing, and the brightness of the stroboscopic blue light emphasized the overcast evening. The sergeant activated the high pitch siren and flashing lights as they sped to the scene. A barricade of blue and white squad cars and a fire department ambulance were parked at jagged angles cordoning off the dark alley between 47th Indiana Avenue and Michigan Avenue. The revolving blue lights of the police cars and the revolving red light of the ambulance gave off an eerie glow as a crowd of Saturday night partiers strained to see what had caused all the police activity. A shapely black woman in a red wig and a short black skirt was on her tiptoes trying to look over the shoulders of two large white police officers, a young woman pushing a baby stroller stopped and was busy talking with the other lookie-loos. A woman in yellow curlers looked down from the back porch of her second floor apartment holding a fried chicken leg in her flabby hand. A cluster of uniformed police officers crowded about, not letting anyone out or into the building and waiving the gathering crowd of onlookers away. In the still night air, the annoying and ear piercing sirens of police and emergency vehicles filled the air as television reporters prepared for their, on-the-air commentaries.
A rank stench; putrid with the smell of death seeped from the alley. Many of the reporters and their cameramen covered their mouths with their hands or handkerchiefs and gagged. One older police officer laughed as an attractive white female report, vomited. A trim and fit-looking young police officer named ELLIS and one pot-bellied older police officer named WILSON stood behind a yellow police tape preventing the curious spectator from entering the alley. Sergeant Lundgrin parked the vehicle behind a row of police cars and he and the commander bristly walked the half block to the alley. The Pitbull, in the third floor window was in frenzy, barking and growling at everyone who passed. The sergeant and commander passed a group of young men and women.
YOUNGMAN
Serve them chink, mutherfuckers right, what in the fuck they doing over here anyway.
A young man with a prison-yard physique glanced at one of the policemen.
OTHER YOUNG MAN
Yeah, that’s right! While you at it shoot that muthafucker’, barking-ass dog!
The commander and the sergeant ignored the comments and continued walking. When they arrived at the alley, they saw two uniform officers stationed at the mouth behind a yellow crime scene tape, twenty yards behind them were the two bodies. The older officer recognized Commander Hollis and Sergeant Lundgrin and held up the tape.
REGGIE
What happened?
OFFICER
What I’ve been told is that two Orientals were murdered by some kinda of animal, that’ all I know, but there was a piece of paper on each body with the numbers, 235.
REGGIE
235?
OFFICER
Yep, 235, what the fuck does that mean?”
REGGIE
In policy, that the number for death.
HOLLIS
Any witnesses?
OFFICER
None so far.
REGGIE
Who called it in?
OFFICER
That woman over there talking with the detectives.
A tall, shapely black woman, wearing a very short pink mini skirt, low cut blouse, blond wig and pink hip boots was talking to Detective Baxter as the commander and sergeant approached.
REGGIE
What you got Baxter?
BAXTER
This is Miss Kitty Denour, she found the bodies.
HOLLIS
I’m police commander Richard Hollis and this is Sergeant Reginald Lundgrin, what happened here?
The woman was visibly upset.
KITTY
I was walking through the alley with a client when we saw the bodies.
REGGIE
A client?
KITTY
A john, ok, we were going to take care of our business when we saw the bodies with their guts hanging out.
REGGIE
See anything else?
KITTY
No, my client hurriedly jogged out the alley, he said he was on probation and couldn’t get involved. I called the police from Chili Mac’s restaurant.
HOLLIS
Well whatever else you can remember tell the detective.
The commander passed the Crime Scene unit where the techs were about to begin processing the crime scene when Commander Hollis spotted Doctor Donna Wright leaning over the body taking photos, documenting the victims from every angle. Commander Hollis met Donna, over a dead body years ago. A thirteen-year-old drug addict had apparently died of an overdose in one of the vacant apartments in the Robert Taylor Homes. The police department wanted to write it off as just another black kid gone wrong, but Donna, against the orders from her superior, conducted an autopsy that revealed the young man had died, not from an overdose but had been murdered. A subsequent police investigation disclosed that the young man was a male prostitute and had been given a “hot shot,” a deadly combination of pure heroin. A white businessman from the suburbs was eventually arrested, charged and convicted of the homicide. For three years, Doctor Wright had been the city’s Chief Medical Examiner, which Hollis knew was an undeserving title since she virtually ran the office for her politically connected, overbearing and credit stealing Irish boss, Jerome T.Hogan who was the Coroner. Doctor Wright was a black woman in her mid-forty’s, overweight and brilliant. In Hollis’s book, Doctor Wright was the Office of the Coroner.
What you got doc?
WRIGHT
I’ve been to hundreds of homicide scenes and there is always a sense of compassion for the victims, but I have never seen anything like this before. These poor souls damn near were eaten alive.
SERGEANT
What you think happened?
WRIGHT
Excuse the language but fuck if I know. I was born and raised on a cattle ranch in Montana. We raised cows, sheep and goats. Every now and then, a coyote or a mountain lion would take one of the cattle. One day my dad and I found one of our cows in the meadows his stomach ripped out. The choice meat for wild animals is the heart, lungs and liver. This is what they eat first before finishing the rest of the carcass. These guys’ heart, liver and lungs are gone and there are bite marks all over their bodies, this is a new one for me.
Commander Hollis and Sergeant Lundgrin walked to the bodies being covered with a white plastic sheet by a medical technician.
HOLLIS
Could you please remove the sheets?
TECHNICIAN
A rail-thin, dirty-blond haired the tech kneeling on the ground said, without bothering to look up.
The Medical Examiner has already authorized the release of the bodies, let us finish our job and get the hell out of this fuckin’ alley. The whole area is highly infectious with all these fuckin’ rats running around. Smell like shit.
REGGIE
Get your skinny ass out the way, before I kick you in the ass.
The startled tech jumped to his feet and looked at the commander and the sergeants.
TECHNICIAN
Oh, I’m sorry.
The technician pulled back the sheet off Yow and Chin. The Commander and the sergeant knelt down and took a hard long look at Yow and Chin’s bloodstained clothes. Their bodies were lying side by side snarled in a freeze-frame of grotesque horror, their dried blood congealed and their faces frozen in the horrifying moments of their death. Bite marks covered their bodies; their head turned in an odd angle and their guts spilled into the dirty alley. Yow’s pony tail lay on the ground and looked as if it was bitten off. Chin’s wide apoplectic eyes were locked open and drops of dried blood were on his mutilated chin. Suddenly there was a sudden loud crack, like a gunshot in the alley. The reporters and cameramen jumped behind their vehicles, while the curious onlookers tried to find somewhere to run. The police officers started to laugh nervously.
OFFICER
Just rattraps, the Rodent Control Department put hundreds of them in the alleys.
HOLLIS
You think we have wild mountain lions roaming the alley in Chicago?
REGGIE
I don’t know what the hell you got, but these are animal bites.
Two muscular
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