Family Stays With Family
General Summary
The job was simple, but the path to do it was not.
Queen Miere of the Brights asked for one thing: wipe out all living creatures in the Char. One of the least populated districts in the entire area, and all they needed to do was pop a few heads and make things quiet. An already easy task made even easier with a gun-toting brute on their side.
But it would be far from simple. The four of them standing before the Queen would not be enough to blot out an entire district. Fortunately, they had some assets on their side.
As they left the palace and hopped onto Jag's armored bus, Lark tapped the 32-year-old's tattooed shoulder and made a short request.
"Let's stop by the farm first."
---
Pulling up to the old homestead, Lark couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia and belonging. The dilapidated farmhouse stood well-removed from society, broken and rebuilt over the 27 years The Family resided there, yet the sight was still comforting. In a world of raiders, slavery, and horrific pain, the dwelling place of her inbred and mutated relatives provided a safe haven.
Cousin Barker sat on a stump out front, the first to see the bus pull up. She smiled wide, her teeth a ragtag collection of misshapen spikes and slabs. Ever the sweetheart, she met Lark at the door of the bus, and wordlessly offered up her gnarled tin can, even though she was several bites into it. Lark was about to politely refuse, before the front door of the farmhouse burst open and Papa Bill stepped out.
"HOOOOOOOOOOOO-EIE! HEY E'RYBODY! LARK'S HOME!"
The gargantuan man lumbered forward to greet his little girl, his stained smock dragging in the dirt and kicking up a cloud of dust that complimented his natural, homey musk. As he got closer, the third eye on his forehead bulged outward, emitting an unsettling squidgy noise. He was excited.
"Well I'll be, Lark. How'd it go? Yer big meetin' with Queen Me-ar, righ'?"
Lark simply said, "It went well. Get the Family on the bus, we've got a job."
All three eyes narrowed as a deep smile slid across Papa Bill's face. He chomped down on two sausage fingers and let out a shrill whistle.
"GETTUP Y'ALL! WE GOT A JOB!"
Hooting and hollering followed shortly, and a cacophony of shuffling and pattering feet could be heard inside the farmhouse. Various members of the Family quickly started running out and hopping on the bus. Auntie Red walked out the front door with her bag of supplies slung over her shoulder, her lonely thumbs curled over dismembered knuckle nubs. Uncle Ozzy flung the basement hatch open and emerged, his gangly arms wrapped around a collection of "cooking utensils". He was followed shortly after by Porridge, a timid and submissive assistant. Chaucer was next, giving Lark a big bear hug and attempting to impart some words of wisdom through his hopelessly fused lips. Ruby followed, the Family's "beauty" with spray-paint-red hair and enough curves to satisfy a NASCAR fan. Birdbrain wasn't far behind, a skinhead with scars and a disfigured jaw. He watched Ruby closely, eyes on a swivel for anyone who might even try to take her away from him.
The rest of The Family eventually piled on to the bus, found their seats, and made themselves comfortable. Jag started the engine and they left the farm behind, with poor, dejected Fido slowly coming to grips with his new life as a lonesome farm dog.
They were off to the Char.
---
Or, so they thought. On the road somewhere in Henry Etta's (East), they had to make an emergency stop to uncover the source of a "weird smell".
As Lark opened the hatch to the storage compartment under the bus, she was singed by green flames that shot up into her face. She fell back, hurt, and noticeably burnt. From the compartment, Porridge tumbled out, charred to a crisp and wearing some foggy goggles. The smoke pouring out behind him smelled sweet and intoxicating, and undeniably like the work of Uncle Ozzy. Jag and Key were none too pleased at this development.
"You destroyed my stuff!" the angel shouted at Porridge. Her cot and belongings were covered in a sticky black substance, sprinkled with broken glass and defiled by the limp body of Uncle Ozzy, who lay draped across the ruined living space in a renaissance pose.
Papa Bill rumbled out of the bus and cracked his belt at Porridge, who received two lashes before submitting and climbing onto the bus. The behemoth patriarch re-fastened his britches and joined Lark at the scene of the crime. Uncle Ozzy's body fell out of the compartment as Jag pulled on his arm. He was still breathing, but covered in lacerations and chemical burns.
"You jive-ass, cyst-lookin', waste of breathin' space!" Papa Bill was not happy. "We oughta' just leave yer here on the side of the road! Serve you righ' for tryna cook up some crystal un'neath this good man's ve-hic-ul!"
Key was patching Ozzy's wounds, but Papa Bill rolled his eyes. Waste of effort.
"We can just load him back on the bus, Key, you can keep working on him in there," Jag said, anxious to keep moving.
"Absolutely not! Ol' brother o' mine dun learned his lesson! He stays here, think 'bout what he done."
The two looked up, startled by Papa Bill's command. Key stopped her work, disgusted. "Am I wasting bandages here? He's coming with!"
Lark spoke up, turning to Papa Bill. "He comes with us. Family stays with family."
"Look at you, girl! He dun this to ya!" The gruff man pointed at her scorched clothing. "He damaged yer purity! He hurt this Family! He DESERVES this!"
Lark's heart sank. She knew she had no chance in this situation. Her head hung, and a single tear stained the inside of her mask.
"Now go get back on that bus, let yer Auntie Red clean ya up."
She did as she was told.
---
Inside, Chaucer was watching the whole scenario. He scratched his face in nervousness; the thick skin covering his teeth often got itchy in tense situations.
As Lark and Papa Bill got back on the bus, his eyes stuck on the two figures still outside, Jag and Key. They looked at each other, then at the twisted form of Uncle Ozzy. Chaucer glanced around at the inside of the bus; no one else was watching.
Quickly, almost too quick for him to see, the driver and medic grabbed Ozzy's body and shoved it back into the storage compartment. His eyes widened at the deception, the nerve! He would have to tell Lark about this...
Tell her... Right.
Your sense of humor absolutely comes through in this vignette. My favorite parts of this story were your quips. I was rolling at Ruby having “enough curves to satisfy a NASCAR fan”, and your ending of Chaucer needing to tell Lark about Uncle Ozzy was a witty conclusion to the work. Well done. I also appreciated that you took the time to give the farm that homey feel, as it helped me as a reader to connect to the “safe haven” feeling that Lark has when arriving. Each member of The Family was also given a striking personality, most in just a line or two. This served to flesh out this location you’ve built up even more, even if some of those characters never reappeared again during this story.
The lead was the weakest link of this vignette for me, as I felt the rest of the piece was much higher quality. It was almost misleading in a way, as I was surprised by the spike in attention to detail as the characters arrived at the farm. The first sentence didn’t grab my attention, and the overall introduction had little to do with the rest of the story regardless. In my opinion, you could have removed everything from “The job was simple” to “‘Let’s stop by the farm first.’” and began the story at the farm. Maybe a single line about the task at hand in the first paragraph, and then sprinkling mentions about an important mission throughout the piece would have done the trick. However, I had a much more pressing gripe with your vignette: HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO POOR FIDO???