FROM THE "ROAD NOTES OF MAVEN": WELCOME TO TRANSILvania! The Hold Up House Part III

FROM THE "ROAD NOTES OF MAVEN": WELCOME TO TRANSILvania! The Hold Up House Part III, a photo by mavenimagery® Officially Away... on Flickr.

FROM THE "ROAD NOTES OF MAVEN": WELCOME TO TRANSILvania! The Hold Up House Part III
Image by: socal_gal64
Story by: maven
Special thanks to: socal_gal64 for providing this invaluable image. Please check out her amazing photostream: www.flickr.com/photos/29111659@N03/sets/

Maven's note: This image is not the actual building in the story. The image is belonged to socalphotography. When I saw this image I was literally blown away by not only the creative, story-telling theme, but it was as if a capture of the real building in the story just the way I remember it. The only modifacation I did was to change the tones to a more cold, steely atmospher.

THE HOLD UP HOUSE III
I stagger after scar Face and the eerie silence makes Scar Face's heavy government-crafted low boots sound louder on the cement paved corridor. Suddenly, he stops in the elongated iron bar shadows cast by flickering bulbs, facing a woman with dirty blond hair, her eyes sunk in their socket; she was wearing a smeared with dirt and dark splotches over a stone washed and slits and shreds on the knees designer jeans, her feet bare.
"This is Tina," chuckles Scar Face. He moves closer and asks woman sheepishly, "Or waz it Pia. She's in trouble?" He chuckles some more as he moves away and continues along side corridor, I ignore the rhythm of the sound of his shoes, and ask,"What kind of trouble?"
Scar Face waves his now trade mark gesture and says, "Kind of women get into...enough you need to know."
I glance at the woman, trying to focus, but her face keeps in and out focus. First, I think she purses her lips to form a kiss but the second time I read 'hElP mE'. Despite Putinka, I flinch at the burn scar on her neck. "What, everyone has a scar here?" I giggle and, immediately, it cuts off by the hurting gaze; her haunting cobalt blue glare.
The low-watt bulbs switch off longer this time and I almost knock Scar Face off of his feet in the darkness. Now, looking back, I wish had I only not knocked him down on the floor but also knocked his teeth off. The lights come back but weaker...or is it the Putinka messing with my vision.
"This is," Scar Face starts to say, but pauses. Then, "Kill me God, if I know. She iz in the lizt." This is a girl, almost a child. A crouching tiger in the corner, her head resting on her both arms propped by her knees. She raises her head and, even under the flickering, low-watt bulbs, I can see her eyes are red and glassy and...a small, burn scar, just like Tina's, at the base of her neck, beveled and bossed, hardly larger than a quarter. A trick of the shadows? No, it can't be. Overlords! They're branded! Like cattle.
"Putinka!" I say, making a mental note in my Putinka-ridden brains for a reason yet I don't know. "Her name is Putinka, yeah!" I force a laugh. Kill him God Scar Face somehow understands the joke and starts laughing with me. The ironic and twisted American humor. I bet his favorite movie is Reservoir Dogs and not Mr Bean.
"Puutinka!" he lets out an annoying laughter and it gets louder.
"You think I'm funny?" I say in a flat, bone cold tone, serious expression turns on my face or I hope it does.
Scar Face forcibly stops laughing, confused, he asks, "Whaht?"
"Think that's funny?" I repeat.
Everything goes eerily dark and quiet. The lights are off again. When they are back Scar Face's eyes turn steely, somewhat defensive. "No, my friend--"
"Don't call me that!" I interrupt him harshly. "I'm not your friend for the hundred times!"
We stare at each other.
After a moment, Scar Face nods, signaling he understands. "Not yet, perhaps," he says as matter-of-factly. "There were people wanted to destroy me. Wanted to demoralize me...They started it all."
"Who're 'They'?" I managed to say. Suddenly, I feel a torrential of questions at the tip of my tongue, but I know I'm too drunk for such confrontational inquiries.
"With a trusted friend--"
"Lemme guess," I cut him off, hoping that this son of whore-ridden-mama doesn't detect the repulsion that shudders through me, down my spine. "The guy with the 'Der Fuhrer' plate, right?"
Scar Face looks at me in bewilderment, startled at the mention of the man with the black bemeer.
He takes a sip from the Putinka bottle he carries and which I fail to notice before."Impressive," Scar Face says, grimacing. "You are good. Just as I thought of you. Yes. Andrei helped me form a society. More members are being initiated all the time. You are about to become one. Cheers!". Takes another gulp, then, he offers the bottle. The Putinka! The inception of this evil path!
I grab the Putinka and take a deep gulp."What society?" I ask between swallowing the burning liquid down my throat.
His mouth twitches. "There is a danger to need-to-know,"
"I'm not need-to-know? Stop testing me, ugly face,"
Scar Face laughs, actually amused that I call him 'ugly face'.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, raise the bottle and glue my lips around the tip, Glup! Glup! Glup! until I drain the last drop,sucking up the moisture at the bottom. When you're drunk you're aware of everything that goes around you...but your senses, your self-control are beyond your control like in a vivid dream. You want to wake up, you can't. You want to stop bad things, you can't. You're in slow motion or motionless; you want to scream, punch your fist into the adversary's face, kick, wake up, struggle to no avail. A song in your head hits you silly, Oh yeay yeah, ohh, oohh, yeayyh. Ohh why?, but dreams tend to make everything feel so heavenly and euphoric...
"If you told me, you'd have to kill me, right?" I say, coughing.
The earsplitting gun shot echoed though the corridors like a thunder-strike, startling both Scar Face and me. I hear shrieks of women, as if a thousands of them, coming from the end of the corridor, from everywhere. I drop the bottle and it shatters to pieces on the cement floor.
The low-watt bulbs are flickering and each time going off longer.
"Andrei," says Scar Face, a slight alarm in his voice. "He is back. Had a bad day again. He shoot the body disposal.
"A body what?" I ask.
Silence.
"Goddamn, ugly face! Answer me!"
"The dog," he blurts finally. "We use it to get rid of the flesh. Come!"
The vision of the scrawnugly mongrel is chewing on Galina's foot plays in front of eyes and a pleasant feeling sweeps over me, but I also feel a tinge of jealousy trying to make its way through my bank of thoughts, realizing I have had plans for that damn mongrel. I would love to blow its brains off myself but Andrei gets to feel that pleasure. But, why would he shoot the dog?

Will continue...