Mer Rouge (Part 44)

He dragged his dangling foot through brush and shallow swamps before resting on a downed southern pine. Ahead of him, he could hear the soft humming of passing vehicles. He took his canteen and poured the remaining few drops down his throat and then threw it on the ground. Then, after hearing some shimmering beneath the needles, a squirrel popped up beneath the deadened brush and he shot it. He skinned and roasted it over a piddly fire while the black night above morphed into a faint blue. The meat made him sick. He vomited and passed out and the rising dew put the fire out. He awoke thirty minutes later and found his foot semi reattached. Some of the gunshot blasts to the neck and chest partially healed. The recovery process was working faster than expected but not fast enough. After spewing the remaining bits of rat meat from his throat, he reached for a tree branch from the downed pine and used it to lift himself. He marched in the direction of the street hum.

It was a couple in a burnt orange Volkswagen van that saw him first. He was limping southbound in the direction of Monroe when the tires squealed. The man hopped out of the vehicle and approached the broken figure in a stricken panic. The man nearly heaved. The figure’s eyes were swollen shut and his scalp half burned and his clothes charred and bloodied. “Oh my god sir! Are you okay?!!” the man yelled.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Get the fuck out of my way,” the brother told him.

“Darlene! This man is in shock! Help me carry him to the van!”

“No goddamnit! I said I’m fine!”

The woman sprinted in their direction and grabbed the brother by the legs. The man slid his hands under his armpits and despite his protest, they carried him to the back of the van. “Don’t worry sir! We’re gonna get you to a hospital!” the man said as he jumped into the driver’s seat.

“Fuck you! Just let me out!”

“Darlene! Give him some water!”

Darlene opened a canteen of water and the brother kept pushing it away and it spilled all over the floorboards. “Just stop the fucking car!” the brother demanded.

The driver turned around momentarily to assure the injured man that he was in good hands. But the van drifted into the northbound lane and smacked a large Peterbilt head on. Hours later, the brother woke up in a hospital in Monroe. He looked under the covers and realized the gunshot wounds and numerous broken bones were fully healed. Even his burnt scalp returned to normal. He would have got up and left if it weren’t for two large Monroe PD officers flanking him on both sides. Then the doctor came in.

“Glad to see that you’re awake,” the doc said. “You were the sole survivor of a horrific car accident and we have a lot of questions for you.”

“Is it still Sunday?” the brother asked.

“Yes it is.”

“Thank Christ,” he said and began pulling out IVs.

“Lay back down sir.”

“Why?”

The large burly officer to the right laid his hand on the brother’s chest and pushed him back on the bed. “First off,” the doctor said, “who are you? We found no identification on your person.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Because you came in here with multiple gunshot blasts to the chest and neck. Your lungs were punctured and filled with blood. You had multiple fractured and broken bones consistent with a car accident. And your brain was swelling to the point where it was oozing from your ear holes. And now look at you. It’s just hours later and you’re good enough to walk out. That doesn’t seem unusual to you?”

“Good genes I guess, doc. What can I say?”

“You were also carrying a .380 ACP, a few shotgun shells, and we’re burned all to hell,” a Monroe officer spoke up.

“It’s Louisiana, sir. Is that a crime down here?”

“We’re gonna be keeping you overnight,” the other officer said. “Until we get to the bottom of this.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

A movie about space zombies

I’m not here to judge the quality of Star Trek: First Contact as a Star Trek movie. Trekkies like Angela Collier and Mike Stoklasa have informed me that Star Trek has to be super serious, boring, and never fun. So on that note, First Contact is a terrible Star Trek movie. But as a movie movie, I say that 1996 was my year of awakening. Twister. Independence Day. Star Trek: First Contact. Or, “the triple headed dragon” as I like to say in film history. They changed everything. It was during this era that SFX/CGI was it it’s peak. Special effects were still special and First Contact still holds up remarkably well.

But I’m not here to talk about that shit. Instead I’m gonna talk about the first five minutes or so. It might be hard for kids to remember, but it used to be that plots kicked off starting at the first frame. They were very economical in how they established characters and backgrounds and typically stuck with the “show don’t tell” rule. In First Contact, post credits, the first frame was Picard being assimilated by the Borg. Seconds later, it’s revealed to be a dream. Then BAM. The plot kicks off. No time wasted. Even as a kid, I thought damn, wanna take me out to dinner first? But there was no need. I knew exactly what was going on and what the motivations were.

Mind you, I was a TNG fan so I knew what the history was. But watching this opening now, I can’t help but think how the runtime would be wasted nowadays on thirty minutes of Picard whining to Deanna Troi about his emotional scars and blah blah blah. But this was the 1990s. This was the era of confined space action films like Die Hard, Under Siege, Air Force One, etc. So we all had one question on our minds: what if the USS Enterprise was hijacked by space zombies? And it wasted almost no time in getting us answers.

Mer Rouge (Part 43)

DuPont let Hutch finish pissing and then he made the escapee hug the tree. The sheriff handcuffed both of his wrists and ordered the prisoner to not make a sound. A few feet away, three bundled cylinders just barely a foot in length were laid in the grass. DuPont reholstered his revolver and strapped the cylinders to his back. Hutch grew concerned. “Uhh, watchu got there officer?” he asked. But the sheriff twisted a few valves along the hose connected to a firing mechanism held in his right hand and a small flame popped up at the end of the hose. “Don’t go nowheres,” DuPont told Hutch. Then he marched toward the shack.

Inside, the Priest was relentlessly cackling over Moses’ comments. All seemed to be at ease until the sheriff gently pushed open the door. Every eyeball turned to that small flame at the end of the hose. After a few moments, the priest looked into the eyes of the man holding the hose. “Sheriff DuPont,” he said. “Glad you could join us for Sunday service.”

“Do you usually invite escape convicts to your services?”

“We’re all children of God ain’t we?”

The sheriff twisted the valve further and the flame grew larger. “I know what you are,” DuPont said.

“I don’t know what this is about but I’m sure there’s a more civilized way to handle it.”

“Old folks used to talk about you,” DuPont continued. “They said that Methuselahs still walked among us. That some kind of holy water meant for consumption from the gods can turn men immortal. They said they can only be stopped by the power of the flame. I used to say bullshit. And that whatever happens in that godforsaken Morehouse Parish was none of my business until it spills over into my parish. And now it has. I know you was behind that motel fire. And you was most certainly behind that explosion off Kurtzy Road. And it was you at the Morehouse Jail fire this mornin’.

The priest nodded. “Yes, Sheriff. You are correct. You are correct in more ways than one.”

“I know I am.”

“Good. Then you should know that there’s something in Mer Rouge that needs to be stopped. You can arrest all of us and handle the matter yourself. Or we can all take care of this problem right now. Of course, your third option is you can light us all on fire.”

“I think I’d rather be arrested,” Moses interrupted.

“I just gotta know one thing,” DuPont said. “Are you one of them?”

“I am.”

“Then we all head out to Judge Castor’s this morning.”

“Even me?” asked Moses.

“Do I have to go too?” chimed Oren.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mer Rouge (Part 42)

At dawn’s twilight, the four men were laying low at the shack behind St. John Chyrsostom Church. The priest was doing his damndest to boil coffee by the fire out back. Moses retreated out of his prison uniform, now sporting a plain white t-shirt and a wrinkled pair of khakis. Hutch meanwhile still donned his black and white striped uniform, with the top pulled down and the arms twisted around his waste. The priest came in delighted with himself over the coffee and gave each man a tin mug. He happily splashed the brown sludge into each of their cups. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we should rest up for a few hours. But we gotta move fast. The Morehouse sheriff’s department is probably already pissing themselves.”

Moses protested. “I don’t know what y’all have planned but leave me out of it.”

“How long were you locked up in there for?” Hutch asked. “I was only there for two nights and I wanna kill every sonava bitch there!”

“Fuck that!” Moses barked.

Oren took his brother aside. They stepped out to the front. Out of earshot from the priest. Oren put his hand on Hutch’s shoulder. “Maybe he’s right,” he said. “Look, I have a car. We can just hop in it and get the hell outta here. There’s shit going on here that has nothing to do with us!”

“And go where?!” retorted Hutch. “Hell, I’m probably already a fugitive! I gotta clear my name!”

“But you’re gonna die! You’re going up against an entire police department! They have guns! We ain’t got shit!”

Hutch nodded. “Maybe you’re right. But what the hell happened in there? How did you get us out?”

“There is shit here that goes against god, Hutch. I’m tellin ya. We didn’t set the fire. A couple of really bad dudes did. They just blew the whole place right to shit. I think one was killed.”

“Did you guys kill him?”

“No. But the priest did shoot one of the deputies.”

“The fat one?”

“No. The other one.”

“Damn,” Hutch mourned. “That was a good dude.”

“I’m sorry but we got lucky this time. I doubt we will again.”

Hutch looked back into the shack and saw the Priest and Moses chatting over their shitty coffee. He reached back to scratch his head. “Alright,” he said. “Lemme think through this. I gotta go piss first.”

Hutch marched off out of view while Oren returned to the shack. When he arrived at a lone tree facing the road, he dropped his prison outfit lower and took out his member. He took a deep breath mid piss. Then a clicking sound was heard. He turned to his right to see Sheriff DuPont aiming his service pistol at him. “Pull up your trousers, son,” the lawman ordered.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Your hometown

I think you’re wrong if you believe that a “nice place to live” is place that has a prolific “nightlife”, a unique “culture”, and a well-funded “education system”. That’s the wrong attitude to have. A nice place to live is a place where everyone steps outside of their home and feels a small shred of solidarity with their neighbors in knowing that they live in a goddamn madhouse.

Take my neighborhood for example. Now I would hardly describe it as a “shithole”, but it certainly has its “eccentricities” to say the least. One of our elected officials got caught exposing his penis at a gas station and then, weeks later — just a quarter mile down the road — a road rage incident went viral. I love living here.

It’s never the good things that create the strongest bonds. It’s the shit things; things like the godawful sports team, the rampant corruption, the crippling depression you feel because there’s no future. One of the joys in going to the gas station is seeing the guy behind the counter curse god because he sat down on a piss-soaked toilet. It’s the small, relatable incidents like that which brings us closer.

So in an era where we’re all lonely, I say we should forget about finding “our people”. You are an island unto yourself. No one will ever understand you and there’s no sense in trying. Instead, I say you should wonder down that dark alleyway. Maybe try some “stealth camping” by that graffiti-ridden dumpster behind Kroger. Perhaps that knife-wielding hobo has something interesting to say. You never know. You might make a friend or two.

Mer Rouge (Part 41)

It was nearly 4am when the call came. Half asleep, DuPont reached for the phone on the nightstand. He pulled it under the covers and struggled to speak. “Uh huh,” he said.

“Sorry to wake you this early,” the deputy said. “But we got a call from Mrs. Ames. Apparently she woke up in the middle of the night to find her son Humphrey asleep on the couch. Now normally, this wouldn’t be much of a problem except that Humphrey got busted a few months back for cruisin up and down Interstate 20 and takin advantage of numerous hitchhikers of the female type, if you know what I mean. Fortunately, the boys in Bastrup caught up with him first. Of course, everything went to trial and Humphrey was found guilty and while he was awaiting a spot in Angola, they were holding him in Morehouse Parish. Evidently, he got out.”

“Well I’m sure you upheld your sworn duties and apprehended the man.”

“Yessir. He’s being booked as we speak.”

“So what’s the point of this story, Pete?”

“Well, after we apprehended him, Humphrey swore up and down that he didn’t escape from Morehouse. He’s tellin us that there was a fire and that a man of the cloth came through and opened the jail cell for him. He made all the way to his momma’s house in West Carroll before she called him in.”

DuPont immediately cut on the lamp and sat up in bed. “A man of the cloth?” he asked.

“Yessir. I tried calling Dirk but I can’t reach anyone over there. Do you want me to head out that way?”

The Sheriff threw off the covers. “No!” he said. “Don’t no one head out that way. I’m heading out there myself.”

“But sheriff, if there was a fire, it might be pretty dangerous. At least let me alert Chaz and the fire department.”

DuPont already had his khakis and button up on. He shook his head a moment and thought. “Yeah. Yeah Pete. Call up the fire department. Before I head out to Morehouse, I want to check on something first.”

“Do you want someone to come with you?”

“No. There will be no paperwork on this if you catch my drift. It’s Morehouse Parish’s problem technically. I’m just headed that way out of curiosity.”

“I catch your drift sheriff but should I be concerned?”

DuPont reached for his Stetson off the dresser and placed it on his head. “Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said, “if you don’t hear from me by nine A.M., you’ll have your answer.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mer Rouge (Part 40)

Through strained breath, Fornier shouted to the old man. “Yur that priest they lookin for ain’t ye?”

“There’s no time to talk,” the priest told the deputies. “Now’s the time to do what’s right!”

Simpson froze and the fire raged on. It spread to the porch and was threatening to overtake the whole precinct along with the adjoining cellblock. The priest cocked the pistol. “What’s it gonna be?” he said.

The two deputies were juxtaposed against an endless black void with their faces illuminated by a burgeoning orange glow. Simpson, transfixed and petrified by the hellish priest before him, slowly reached for the keys. “By god, if you toss em them keys, we might as well both be dead!” Fornier warned his partner.

“Make your choice,” the priest advised.

Simpson reached for his belt with the keys dangling next to his holstered service pistol. The priest watched closely. As the deputy rested his hand above the key set, the priest nodded. Then came the critical error. Simpson reached for his pistol and drew it. The priest fired a single round into his skull and both him and Fornier fell into the grass. In a last ditch effort, Fornier attempted to draw his pistol. “It won’t do ya no good,” the priest told him.

The deputy knew that. He laid there pathetically with his hands in the air.

The priest approached Simpson’s body and ripped the keys from his belt. Then he turned his gun towards Fornier. “Did he drink of the water?” the priest asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll kill you later.”

Him and Oren retreated back into the precinct. The fire had already overwhelmed the entry way and kitchen and was swiftly working its way back. The priest fumbled with the set of a dozen keys before reaching the correct one. With the jailhouse unlocked, inmates were frantically shouting as the smoke billowed in.

“Are you in here Hutch?!” Oren cried out.

“Down here!” a voice called.

Oren sprinted to the end of the cellblock where he found his brother and Moses clinging to the bars. The priest stopped at the first cell and opened it and the freed men rushed for the back exit. “Down here!” Oren shouted.

“For fuck’s sake! We have to free everyone here!”

Four cells were opened before the fire roared into the jailhouse. On the fifth and final one, the priest unlocked it and Hutch jumped out and embraced his brother. “Not now!” the priest interrupted and the remaining four men ran at the rear. Outside, they found the back gate trampled down by the escaped prisoners and they crossed over it. After running several hundred yards, they turned around to watch the precinct collapse underneath the flames.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Mer Rouge (Part 39)

The force of the explosion rattled the ground and the brother disappeared into the fire. After getting knocked to their asses, the two deputies stood up in the doorway and gawked at the raging inferno. When the debris settled, Simpson stepped forward to survey the damage. “Goddamn! I think we got em!” he beamed.

“Don’t be so sure!” Fornier yelled. “Keep your eyes peeled!”

Before Fornier could move through the entryway, the surviving brother hurled a switchblade into his calf. The deputy screamed out and collapsed to the ground. As he reached for the blade, he saw the brother crawling on the floor with a trail of blood following him. Machete still plowed through his chest. Scrambling through the pain, Fornier unleashed the shotgun into the brother’s face, blowing off bits of hair and flesh and leaving the wall behind him awash with blood. Hearing the gun blasts, Simpson rushed back through the entrance and pumped his shotgun into the brother until he was seemingly nothing but a pile of gore. He helped Fornier to his feet and they retreated to the back of the office.

The Priest and Oren watched the explosion unfold from the outside. Befuddled by what just happened, the priest turned to his companion. “C’mon! This might be our only chance!”. As they rounded the corner, they found the shrapnel riddled brother standing up and removing the machete from his chest. Before he could see them, the two men backtracked behind the corner. To their astonishment, the other brother emerged from the fire on his elbows, heavily charred with legs and right hand missing. A patchwork of fire still consumed him. With his last bit of strength, he reached out his left hand for his brother. But the brother stood there, powerless to stop burgeoning flames. The priest gazed upon this hauntingly tranquil farewell. If they weren’t his sworn enemies, he might’ve wept for them. But after his own blood laid there as nothing more than a pile of blackened ash, the last surviving member of the Nine vanished into the night like a hellish wraith.

But the fire raged on and was threatening to overtake the sheriff’s station. Oren and the priest rushed in through the front. Expecting an exchange with the deputies, they found them retreating through the rear entrance and towards a squad car. The priest fired a round into the air. Simpson, with Fornier’s arm around his shoulder, swiftly turned around with his service revolver drawn only to find himself staring down the barrel of the Priest’s .38. “Give us the keys!” he ordered.

The deputy paused. Beads of sweat streamed down his face. “Why?!”

“You’re not gonna let those prisoners burn up are ya?!!”

There was a long pause. “What’s it to you old man?!” the deputy posed.

“Give us the keys and I’ll let you live!”

TO BE CONTINUED…

The 1980s All-Hollywood Team

There’s a massive discrepancy between what the Academy recognized as great in the 80s and what has remained culturally relevant in our times. Ordinary People, Reds, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Out of Africa, Driving Miss Daisy are largely overlooked nowadays in favor of prime-Spielberg and big budget action/ sci-fi schlock, both of which dominated box offices during that decade. And rightfully so. Raise your hand if you’d rather watch Out of Africa over Die Hard. Simply put, the Academy was out of step during this time before course-correcting in the 1990s. So I should state at the beginning that there’s gonna be very few Academy Awards winners on this team.

Cinematography

First Team-Vittorio Storaro. Notable works: Reds, One From the Heart, Ladyhawke, The Last Emperor. (2x nominated. 2x winner). Stararo made a name for himself in the 70s working alongside sex pest Bernardo Bertolucci and later Francis Ford Coppola on Apocalypse Now, the latter of which won him his first Oscar. While I’m not a huge fan of the films he worked on in the 80s, that’s not Stararo’s fault. This guy could make a pile of dogshit look like a work of art.

Second Team-Jan De Bont. Notable works: Roar, The Fourth Man, Die Hard, Black Rain. (0x nominated. 0x wins). De Bont is the only man on this list to get his scalp ripped off by a tiger. That counts for a lot around here. But the lighting and camera work for Die Hard is probably the most under appreciated aspect to that film. Despite a lack of Academy recognition, De Bont deserves to be on this list.

Music Composer

First Team-John Williams. Notable works: The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, ET: The Extra Terrestrial, The Indiana Jones Series. (12x nominated. 1x win). There was only one option here. And spoiler alert, John Williams will probably win first team for the 90s as well. Get this unbelievable run though: from 1980 to 1982, Williams composed The Imperial March for The Empire Strikes Back, The Raiders March for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the soundtrack to ET.

Second Team-Vangelis. Notable works: Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner, Missing, Antarctica, The Bounty. (1x nominated. 1x win). Let’s just be honest. The only reason why anyone remembers Chariots of Fire is because of its electronic score. But Vangelis is much more than that. The Blade Runner soundtrack is one of the greatest of all time. And even though Vangelis is associated with more box office bombs than successes, you couldn’t blame the music for that. Hell, that was usually the best part of the movie.

Screenwriter

First Team: Lawrence Kasdan. Notable works: The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, The Big Chill, Silverado. (2x nominated). Star Wars AND Indiana Jones?! This selection is pretty self explanatory.

Second Team: Paul Schrader. Notable works: American Gigolo, Raging Bull, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, The Mosquito Coast, The Last Temptation of Christ. (0 nominations). Fuck you if you don’t like this pick. I’ve said before that Schrader is the greatest screenwriter of all time and he was at the height of his powers in the 80s.

Supporting Actress

First Team: Kim Basinger. Notable works: Never Say Never Again, The Natural, 9 1/2 Weeks, Batman. (0 nominations). Controversial pick. I get it. But there’s no easy way to put it. Despite James Cameron elevating women into big budget action leads in the 80s, supporting roles—especially the ones we remember most from the decade—were mostly blond damsels in distress. No shade at their ability however. Basinger would be recognized for her acting chops in the following decade. For the 80s, however, I feel that Basinger best demonstrated this blond archetype—one of the few, if not the only one—to do it for both James Bond and Batman.

Second Team: Geena Davis. Notable works: Fletch, The Fly, Beetlejuice, The Accidental Tourist. (1x nomination. 1x win). The great revelation of the 80s before her legendary run in the 90s.

Supporting Actor

First Team: Dennis Hopper, man. Notable works: Out of the Blue, Rumble Fish, River’s Edge, Hoosiers, Blue Velvet (1x nomination). Despite being around since the 50s and dropping off the face of the earth in 70s, Hopper came back in a BIG way in the 80s.

Second Team: Willem Dafoe. Notable works: The Loveless, To Live and Die in LA, Platoon, The Last Temptation of Christ, Mississippi Burning. (1x nomination). Probably the greatest actor of all time to never win an Oscar.

Best Actress

First Team: Meryl Streep. Notable works: The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Sophie’s Choice, Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed. (6x nomination. 1x win). This was just the beginning of absolute domination by Streep in the best actress category. A dominance that continues to this day.

Second Team: Sigourney Weaver. Notable works: The Year of Living Dangerously, Ghostbusters 1 and 2, Aliens, Gorillas in the Mist, Working Girl. (3x nomination). Ellen Ripley alone catapulted Weaver into one of the greatest and most iconic leading ladies of all time.

Best Actor

First Team: Harrison Ford. Notable works: The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones series, Blade Runner, Witness, The Mosquito Coast. (1x nomination). Indiana Jones and Han Solo. Pretty self explanatory. He should have been nominated more than once.

Second Team: Eddie Murphy. Notable works: 48 Hours, Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, The Golden Child, Coming to America. (0x nomination). Despite being the greatest stand up comedian of all time and dominating the box office in the 80s, this translated to 0 nominations. Shame, academy! Shame!

Best Director

First Team: Steven Spielberg. Notable works: Indiana Jones series, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun. (3x nominations). It was the 80s where Spielberg solidified himself as the ultimate box office director.

Second Team: Martin Scorsese. Notable works: Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ. (2x nominated). Oliver Stone could have taken this spot. He was the only director to win twice in the 80s. Except no one talks about his work anymore. They do talk about Scorsese’s though, and arguably Scorsese has had a much greater impact on cinema.

Mer Rouge (Part 38)

Fornier was white as a clam as he watched the brothers stroll up to the porch. He was in the kitchen glancing out the window. He was clutching a shotgun. The lights were off. One brother stepped forth and buzzed the doorbell and then knocked. Simpson approached Fornier from the back. “What the hell did you get us into?” he whispered. “Wasn’t a daisy chain supposed to go off?”

“Get back there and guard the entrance to the cell block,” he spat back. “We’re onto plan B.”

Simpson lightly jogged back down the darkened corridor toward the locked cell. Fornier stood watch. He saw one brother remain on the porch while the other walked the perimeter of the sheriff’s office. As he started glancing through the windows, Fornier ducked. “Shit,” he whispered to himself.

The buzzing continued. A few moments later, the deputy climbed back to his feet and peered through the window. The two men were standing on the porch. One lifted a small caliber pistol and fired it at the lock. There was a kicking sound and the door crashed open. Sweat streamed down Fornier’s face. As the clanking of leather boots echoed through the entry hall, the deputy knew that the first room they’d look at would be the kitchen. He picked up a large machete he found in the tool crib. He waited silently hidden, planked up against the wall by the threshold where he couldn’t be seen. A shadow loomed large over the threshold. And as the brother crossed it into the kitchen, Fornier lifted the machete and plowed it into the brother’s chest. The man collapsed to the ground and sprayed blood across the tile and cabinets. With him on the ground, the deputy stepped into the hallway and opened fire on the other. The remaining brother was caught off guard and took some shrapnel to the right shoulder. Rounding the corner came Simpson ripping bullet after bullet. The brother was outmanned and outgunned and began retreating towards the entrance.

Outside, where the floodlights shone brightly, Oren and the priest heard the exchange of fire. They halted where they stood, a sitting duck. The priest rushed to the far side of the building and away from the entrance. Oren followed closely. He peeked around the corner to see the brother firing a shotgun into the entrance and backing away down the porch and toward the squad car. The deputies returned fire. Once to the vehicle, the brother opened the driver’s side door and squatted down. The windshield glass shattered into a million pieces. He reached for a frag grenade and pulled out the pin. And as the deputies reloaded, the brother stood up from the driver’s side door to hurl the object. Yet the deputies were faster on the drawl. Simpson had his shotgun fully reloaded when he lifted it and fired at the brother’s throwing hand. Bits of finger and bone exploded and the grenade dropped to the gravel. The brother leapt over the hood and the device detonated, igniting a daisy chain of improvised explosives.

TO BE CONTINUED…