Book Promotion : Demon Truck
Chapter 1: Attempted Mugging
PAIN! The pain was intense. The old trucker had been limping out to his truck. He was feeling his age and using his cane to help him across the potholed gravel parking lot when, he saw someone messing with his truck. Several someones it looked like. He yelled at them and started to run toward them when he stepped into a pothole, tripped and almost fell. Just then someone had stepped from between parked trucks and rushed him from behind.
THE PAIN was as if his back had a knife in it.
It did.
The one who had rushed him had just put it there. The knife was mostly in his shoulder. He'd stumbled just at the right moment and thrown off his attackers aim. That pothole might have saved his life.
Might.
He jerked forward retreating from the pain and pulled the knife free from his attackers hands. The knife remained in his back when he twisted and altered his grip on his cane. Then he swung his cane HARD, like a golf club. He’d aimed the heavy brass head of his cane for the 'little head' in his attackers crotch. His aim was good. Dead nuts as one might say. His blow lifted the attacker up off the ground onto his tiptoes before he collapased onto the ground and curled into the fetal position. The howling scream was satisfactory until he ended it with a boot stomping on the neck.
There were more of them. Luckily they were smaller than he. Unluckily he was outnumbered. He did, however have his cane and heavy boots. A cane can be extremely helpful in many of life’s trying and difficult situations as can steel toed boots. His was more than just a cane. When he’d been a much younger man he'd gone to war and managed to lose a foot.
Shortly after that unhappy episode he'd had this cane custom made to his specifications. It had hidden qualities. He’d had a buddy make it for him. That buddy worked in and undisclosed shop in an undisclosed location for an organization that didn’t officially exist. Consequently such minor things as cost and legality were of little importance.
The cane was made of titanium and was thus light but damn near indestructible. It also telescoped into a walking stick, or as it was once known , a quarter staff. A fighting shaft about five foot long. The potentially illegal part was that it also had a ten inch double edged sharp-as-a-razor retractable blade in one end which , sniiiiiked out at the touch of a button. The blade was made from some miraculous can’t-tell-you-about-it material that would cut through almost anything like a hot knife thru warm butter. Oddly enough it had silver as a major constituent of the alloy. It had been one of McNamara’s pet projects no doubt.
Craig O’Conner, the old trucker, prepared himself. He faced his attackers head on and was armed with what amounted to a sophisticated fighting spear. The attackers hesitated then rushed him. Craig had taken time to learn the craft of stick fighting for just such an occasion when he was still overseas. He’d learned from a con man who purported to have trained with a religious order of monks who had supposedly devoted their lives to such things. The conman was a good con man, but he was also good with a stick and a good teacher. Craig had not been an excellent student but he’d done OK, and managed to learn something.
It’s a really BAD idea to rush someone who has a razor edged blade on the end of a pole. Craig swept his weapon laterally and the first rank of attackers went down, clutching their bellies.
Leaking.
Then they tried probing attacks. One attacker rushed in and caught the blade across his neck. The head lifted off the neck in a fountain of blood. The body collapsed.
Another attacker caught the reverse swing of the staff and got the weighted head, on his head crunching bone and collapsed too. Another was unlucky enough to try to block the sweep of the blade with his hand. He watched in horror as his hand came loose and blood fountained from his wrist stump. Soon he bled out and fell down. The ground was becoming littered with corpses.
They didn’t stop.
An attacker would rush in only to be killed or disabled by the staff, with it's silver blade. Craig held them at bay and was gradually wearing them down. They seemed afraid to close, afraid of the silver blade, but Craig was loosing blood from the stab wound in his back and was thus loosing strength.
Who would last longer?
It would never be known. Someone had noticed the fight and called the cops. The sound of many sirens was heard converging upon the truck stop. Craig's attackers departed the scene taking their dead and wounded with them, just before the cops arrived. Craig retracted his spear back into it's walking cane configuration. Then he leaned forward on it.
Hard.
He was REALLY feeling his age now, and was close to collapse.
The cops arrived in force, several squad cars, and an ambulance. This part of town, a border town, was not for a single pair of officers. It was that kind of a neighborhood. The cars stopped and cops got out, guns drawn. One walked up to Craig.
"Ok,what's going on here, we have a report of , " then he stopped, eyes bulging, boggled at Craig. “Mister, did you know that you have a knife in your back.”
Craig stood still for minute as if thinking about what the Cop had said. “Yeah? Is that what it is? It's rather uncomfortable. I wish someone would remove it. I can’t quiet reach it myself."
Craig swayed a bit and leaned harder on his cane.
The cops nodded to two of his associates who assisted him to the ambulance. The EMTs begin to work on Craig immediately. Craig was loaded into the ambulance which raced away toward the hospital, sirens howling and lights flashing, radioing ahead the condition of the victim.
Craig was either unconscious by then or very near to it, at no time, however, did he loosen his grip on his cane. He held it close and tight.
Chapter 2: Buy a Truck
A couple of months later
The heavy set, older trucker, walking with a cane, chewed on his cigar and scratched his beard looking at the truck.
The trucker stared at the truck and the truck stared back.
It was a fairly old truck. Good condition though. Too good perhaps. How could a truck be in ‘too good of a condition’? Actually it was a magnificent custom truck that outclassed anything else on the lot or perhaps in the state, and it was also the cheapest truck for sale on this particular lot, if not the state. The Trucker didn’t know why and it worried him.
The Trucker, Craig O’Conner by name, was pretty much stuck. He had bills to pay and no Truck to make money to pay the Bills. His last truck had been hijacked and he had been severely injured on a run to Laredo.
“Damn The Insurance companies” He thought for the millionth time “You’d know they’d find some way to weasel out of paying.”
The money they’d paid him wasn't NEAR enough to buy a new truck. Not even before he’d had to make “co-payments” with his health insurance for the hospital bill.
“Damn Insurance Companies” he thought again.
The thieves had hurt him pretty bad when they Hi-Jacked his truck. Naturally Craig had taken exception to them taking his truck and had not ‘gone gently into the night.’ He’d put up a struggle but there had been too many of them, and only one of him, and they’d kicked his ass. He was lucky to be alive. If the cops hadn't arrived at just the right moment Craig might NOT have survived. Many truckers in similar situations had not. Truck hijacking was getting to be a real concern in many places.
The cops had found him stabbed and bleeding and about to fall over. They'd arrived in time to keep him alive.
Just in time.
They had put him in the hospital but the hospital hadn’t been cheap, even though he’d left many days earlier than the doctors had recommended, trying to save on money. His “accident insurance” didn’t consider Hi-Jacking to be an accident, or being stabbed in the back. Perhaps they considered backstabbing to be too much like "good business procedures" that Insurance Companies typically engaged in to frown upon it? It was not, however, a covered expense so Craig had to pay a LOT out of pocket for the medical care.
Damn Insurance Companies, again, AND again, to the lowest regions of hell.
Craig considered that he had been screwed twice or three times over the same incident by two or three different different insurance companies. The insurance company that covered his truck, and the insurance companies that covered his body. At the moment Craig wouldn’t give a bucket of warm spit for any insurance company. They were number one on his hate list.
Craig considered himself to be lucky that there had been a company driver from his company in Laredo when he had released himself and walked out of that hospital, and that there was a ‘hot’ ‘team’ load coming back to the Company Yard in Pennsylvania. Even though Craig was still stiff and sore from the beating he could still drive and the two of them had managed to get the hot load delivered on time. That run had netted him a little bit of ‘running around money”, although he had ‘not near enough’ money from the insurance settlement left to buy a truck.
But he had SOME money,and not being a quitter he was looking around to see what could be purchased with what little, in truck buying terms, he had.
Consequently, he had been looking at old heaps. They would be all he could afford, he thought. Until he ran across this one. This one was an anomaly. It was magnificent. It was by far the best of a long line of trucks that he’d looked at. He really had no choice but to take it, he was running out of time.
‘How much did you say you wanted for it agin?” he asked the salesman.
The salesman looked nervous, thinking that this trucker hated salesmen. The salesman was absolutely correct.
Craig hated salesmen.
Actually Craig hated just about anyone and everyone connected to any type of bureaucracy. Large truck dealerships were bureaucracies, so the salesman needn’t have felt special.
The salesman wasn’t privy to that fact, however, thinking that it was him personally that the trucker had taken a disliking to. Craig was intimidating to the salesman. The trucker was a pretty big guy even if he was fat and old. The trucker also didn't have much of a sense of humor and those cigars he was chain smoking STUNK!
Craig was also currently covered in grease from climbing on and under trucks and had a big gash on his forehead from banging his head on the demon truck. The salesman didn’t even want to LOOK at that gash, or the blood, or the gook in it. He could swear that it was bubbling. It made him sick to his stomach just to think about it. The salesman was also praying that the word ‘liability lawsuit’ didn’t arise in this conversation. If there was a lawsuit the salesman would probably be out of a job. His boss was funny that way.
Taken all that into account the salesman was nervous, very nervous. To get rid of the Demon Truck he might have to lie again. He’d tried lying to this guy once, just a little social lie, nothing to get upset about. Ooops, the resulting ass chewing that he’d received stung deeply. He didn’t want to get caught lying again. Still, he wanted to sell the Demon Truck. Oh yeah he really wanted it gone, again and permanently.
“Well?” Craig asked, turning a gimlet eye on the perspiring salesman, while using a nasty greasy rag to smear some of the blood and oil and gook around on his forehead.
The salesman mumbled an amount.
“Hrrrmmrnmm.” Said the Trucker, turning to look more at what he was beginning to think of as his truck, that which the salesman thought of as the Demon Truck. Craig actually had that much money. The amount left from the insurance settlement and the amount from this last run would cover it and some to spare.
He could buy this truck.
Did he really want to? Then again, did he have a choice?
"Wonder why it’s so cheap” Craig muttered to himself, softly enough to be sure that the salesman couldn’t hear. “This is really odd. This thing ought to be worth a dozen times that amount, and they should be asking a hundred times, hell it's worth more as scrap.”
Craig wandered around a bit more, and was followed and enveloped by noxious clouds of smoke. Since he had arrived at the used truck lot this morning he had wandered all over. He’d inspected many a truck, and had asked an uncountable number of questions. He had opened the hoods to inspect the engines. He’d crawled under numerous trucks to inspect drive lines and frame rails.
He’d actually kicked more than a few tires more in frustration than anything else.
He’d muttered to himself almost constantly and none of what he’d said was pleasant. He was never satisfied, until he’d happened upon this truck. Then it was as if he’d become fixated on THIS truck. It was almost as if the trucker had fallen in love or become addicted.
Or possessed.
Craig had still wandered off to look at others of the hundreds of used trucks on the lot, he'd valiantly fought the influence, but he was always drawn back to THIS truck. Just a few minutes ago he’d banged his head while inspecting it’s drive line, it was almost as if the drive line had shifted to hit HIM, but that was impossible. Naturally about that time some ‘goop’ had dripped down on him, right on the wound. The goop stung really bad and that didn’t do a damn thing to improve his mood. The goop didn’t seem to want to wipe off either. It stuck like glue and that was really odd. His cussing and howling had frightened the family of cats that had taken residence under the old truck. They had taken off running, but hadn't ran very far. They sat by the fence watching Craig and the Salesman.
“This is so weird” Craig thought to himself, for perhaps the hundredth time.“This looks like a new truck, like it’s never been used. It’s a special built custom truck, obviously. I can’t even rightly tell what kind of truck it IS. I dunno if this thing is an old Peterbilt, an AutoCar, A Diamond Reo, a Kenworth, a Marmon, an International, a Freight-liner, or a frigging FORD. It looks brand new. I can’t find anything wrong with it. It’s like it just rolled off the assembly line this morning. It’s obviously got a ‘big-horse engine’, even if it looks different than any other engine I’ve ever seen. It sounds ok when I started it up. In fact it sounded GREAT. No idea what the exact specs are , but its got all the cute gimmicks, all the pretty toys, and a HUGE custom sleeper, complete with microwave, stove, refrigerator with ice box, AND a frickin EASY chair. A lazy boy for crying out loud. In a Truck! I couldn’t even see where that goop dripped from, it’s so clean. Why is it so cheap?”
Aggravated by something he couldn't understand the trucker walked over to the sweating salesman and glared down at him. Craig looked like he wanted to take the salesman apart like a chicken, for dinner. Craig was really frustrated and he looked it. He puffed on his cigar and glared at the hapless, intimidated salesman some more. The salesman all but quailed before him.
“I’ll give you” Craig named an amount that was much less than what the salesman had asked for “Cash money. Here. Now.”
He blew smoke in the salesman’s face and glared at him.
The salesman’s expression was precious. He actually seemed glad, in a fearful sort of way, that he was getting skinned. He was certainly getting skinned at that price. He was getting FLAYED.
He was glad?
The salesman almost fell all over himself agreeing to Craig’s offer. He all but pushed the trucker towards the nearby office to complete the sales transaction. Craig noticed, again several cats avoiding them as they walked into the office. It went suspiciously well thought Craig. Too well. Craig glared at the salesman, shook his hand, then wiped his hand on his pants leg, and put the sales paperwork in his pocket. Craig then walked outside, once again avoiding stepping on cats. Shooed cats away from the truck steps and climbed up in HIS truck. He fired it up and departed.
The salesman had walked outside. He and a dozen or so cats stood watching the truck drive away, until it was out of sight, then the cats started to wander off. His wave at Craig’s leaving was heartfelt. The salesman was REALLY glad to see that damn truck leave his sales lot. After he was sure the trucker had left the salesman returned to his office and sat down. He was covered in sweat and shaking a little. He tried to light a cigarette but couldn’t. His hands were shaking too badly. He’d pulled it off again. He opened a lower desk drawer and pulled out an amber bottle and with shaking hands poured some of the contents into a coffee cup. He spilled a little and didn’t care.
While the salesman was sitting there, holding the coffee cup with both shaking hands, elbows on the table, sipping on his whiskey, the owner of the dealership walked in. The owner had been watching the proceeding’s from a safe distance, unobserved.
“So” he said. also with a strange expression on his face “You sold the demon again?”
The salesman just nodded.
“How many times does that make? Six, seven, ten times that we've sold it? More?” asked the Owner.
The salesman just nodded.
“All the previous drivers either died or went insane?” The owner asked, walking over to the desk where the salesman was sitting.
The salesman just nodded.
The owner rummaged through one of the desk drawers and pulled out a coffee cup. He blew in it and thumped it with his hand, then he sat it on the desk and pushed it toward the salesman’s bottle of whiskey and said. “Pour me a little bit of that rotgut.”
The salesman just nodded and poured his boss some rotgut.
The owner slammed it back. ”Aaaaahhhhh” he said. “That’s some really horrible stuff, just what I need right now. “
He pushed the cup back toward the bottle “Again , lots more this time.”
The salesman just nodded and poured his boss some rotgut. A full cup.
The owner muttered ”I hope I never see that monster again, not since it come back the last time with the interior soaked in blood. The corpse looked as if brain surgery had been preformed. I wonder how long that body, it wasn’t even a complete body, was in the truck before it was found?“
He trailed off and was silent. An ethical businessman would have had the truck crushed for scrap after the first return or the second, surely by the fourth, and he had not. It had been returned to his lot many times afterwards because every one of the buyers except for the original owner had financed it through his company credit branch. Each time something went horribly wrong. Either the driver had committed suicide, gone insane or just disappeared. Something was obviously, horribly , terribly wrong with that truck. The owner of the establishment, however, wasn’t ethical and had done nothing. He had just had the truck cleaned up each time. very, very thoroughly and returned to the sales lot with a lower price tag than it had had the previous time. It was beginning to get hard to find a detail shop that would clean THAT truck.
They had all learned.
He was getting scared. This last sales price was just stupid it was so low. If his books were ever audited this would look very bad. Semi Tractors just were not sold that cheaply. Not even for scrap. No where near.
The salesman just nodded.
The two of them sat there in silence.
Sipping the Rotgut.
After a while the bottle ran dry. There were other bottles in the drawer. They sat there for a long time drinking bad whiskey. Thinking, hoping, dreading and subconsciously wondering if all the stray cats would leave too, just as they had left each previous time the truck left and returned when the truck returned.
Demon Truck may be purchased from Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FIUJTUE#nav-subnav