Syrup Evermore Nick Armbrister
- NICK ARMBRISTER/JBS
- May 11, 2020
- 9 min read
Syrup Evermore
Nick Armbrister
Check out Nick Armbrister's new short story collection. There are two gangster stories, a horror one and a war one.
Gangsta Boyz features tough gangsters doing a jail break with a difference. Will they bust their mate out or not? Enter their violent world.
Gangster Fright is a complimentary story with gangsters, drugs, guns and double crossing. Who is loyal and who is the crook? Dare you find out? And who will die?
Finland Station Soviet Style is a classic vampire tale with a difference. The vamps fight the Soviet army! Will the blood suckers win or the soldiers and tanks? The war takes place in Finland.
Red Empire is a classic cold war story of jet fighters intercepting a mysterious plane near the remote Russian frontier. The Motherland needs protecting. Will war erupt or peace reign
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After escaping he went to his contacts and returned with a hundred year old Conqueror tank and blew the front gate in with three 125mm high explosive shells, then slowly advanced through the wreckage at 5mph. Return fire from the English army’s small arms and light grenade launchers bounced off the tank like ping pong balls. Onwards they went, criminal gangster boys busting ass getting their lad outa the slammer! Andrew drove the tank while his other crim buddies Gerald manned the main gun with Josh on the hull machine gun, a team that needed a 4th man to load the big heavy shells into the massive main gun in the turret. Soon he would be here, when they busted Gant from the inside of this overfilled jail run by the English army who still maintained a small grip on isolated parts of England. Bitter fighting had killed most of the soldiers, destroyed their bases and wrecked their equipment. They were a mere shadow of their former selves but still dangerous in their local areas.
Into the main yard the tank drove slowly squashing the bodies of English army soldiers who were thick enough to get in the behemoth’s way; pulped flesh greased the tracks briefly aiding fuel economy to the heavy-duty diesel engine. Blood ran into the gutters making the Devil smile from upon high, more souls for his purgatory spreading his dark influence onto the land. From the barred glassless windows a cheer went up as the jailbirds inside heard the explosions and gunfire and revving tank engine, their boring existence had been broken by an event. Prison guards ran onto the yard firing machine carbines and machine pistols from the hip on full fucking auto, empty shell cases rattled onto the concrete and slugs whined from the ten-inch armour of the heavy Conqueror tank.
Andrew stopped the tank facing one group allowing Joyce to cut them down with 7.62mm gunfire in short well aimed bursts that bowled them over like nine pins. The other group of guards fired directly from behind the tank when their colleagues were cut down, Gerald slowly turned the heavy turret 180 degrees. He aimed at the group of ten men with the co-axial machine gun and fired one long burst of a hundred rounds, cutting them down and silencing their puny fire, permanently. Andrew slowly drove to the doorway leading into the prison as the turret rotated to face forward – one single high explosive shell made short work of the two inch toughened steel door. The smoke and debris cleared, Joyce and Andrew dismounted their positions and left the tank taking large .45 calibre pistols with them and plenty of ammo clips. Gerald stayed in the turret on the guns, controlling the area so the army wouldn’t interfere with the operation.
Together with pistols in hand, eyes darting through the thinning smoke and broken door, they entered running like deranged madmen. Three English army guards tried to stop them, one tried to physically bar their way and the other two attempted to raise machine pistols – Andrew and Joyce shot all of them in the face using full clips of ammo, reloading and advancing. A long corridor lead ahead into the maze of passageways and cells, they knew the way where Gant was from a geo locator he had implanted in his left molar tooth. It was decided to cause major chaos and release the rest of the inmates, if possible. For this both carried small magnetic detonators to blow the locks of the cells.
“Zinn my man! This is the best Rockford Rock there is, made in our secret lab. Test the product, you’ll like it; it’s pure, a hundred percent. We haven’t cut it. You can do that and triple your profits. All we want it twelve grand for the lot. What do you say?” explained Zeke, winking to his twin Val. Two pairs of deep brown eyes flashed with self gain and deviousness, a pair of blue eyes weighed up the offer.
“Yes. Yes, we have a deal. Myself, I think ten or eleven grand for your Rock but twelve is fine,” replied Zinn. His light brown features became tense, he frowned working out details in his quick mind. Did he smell a rat or even two? No, I think the twins can be trusted, this time. Maybe I can rip them off, not the other way round?
Val chipped in, “Good then, we can arrange a meet and exchange the drugs for credits.”
“Yes, let me think...” Zinn commented, looking into space.
“We can meet at...” Zeke was about to interrupt.
“Be quiet! I’m thinking!” shouted Zinn, annoyed. “The old gothic club in town, you know the one?”
“Yes we know it. What do you want to meet there for?” asked Val, confused. He wondered if the Asian man would try anything dodgy, his previous deals had been fine but one could never tell. Better make sure.
“Why? Why do you think?” challenged the Nepalese gangster, grinning. He gave little away.
“You tell us Einstein,” whispered Zeke enquired his voice full of menace. His Negro features were a mask, very scary and equally convincing.
“Coz no one goes there, it’s been empty for years and we won’t be bothered there. No one will bother us and we can be in and out in minutes. That’s why. Now do you understand why we’ll meet there?” explained Zinn, as if speaking to a child. He wasn’t intimidated by either of the six foot four twins; being five foot nine himself didn’t faze him. Fighting and weapons were a Nepalese way of life.
“Okay then. We know the club and will see you there, say 11PM on Sunday night? Don’t forget the credits, all twelve thousand of them,” Zeke replied, smiling dangerously. He looked over to his brother who backed him up; Val nodded.
“Right then, we’ve got a trade,” the smaller man confirmed. He fastened his black leather jacket, was he cold or was it something else?
“Here Zinn, take the sample. It’s on the house,” Val said, throwing a Rock to the other who caught it.
“Thanks. I’ll take it later. I know its top grade drugs.”
How long had it been like this, living in the fear that every day could be his last, knowing that his country could be disassembled like a broken engine and rebuilt Soviet style, another Soviet Republic under the boot of Moscow? Occupied by an enemy army who killed and murdered and destroyed to achieve their aim, the aim of occupation and of war. To take all they wanted by force, if necessary, when politics with a veiled threat had failed, invasion was the only alternative left. They had crossed the border area a scant few miles ahead of him and set up camp, brought up massed reinforcements of tanks, fighting vehicles, personnel carriers, supply trucks and a whole lot more, the tools of a modern army. Several villages and small towns had already fallen in less than a week of fighting, at first surprised and then overran in short order, the inhabitants panicking, fleeing, fighting and then dying. But they managed to get word out, had succeeded and now an army, a Finnish army was fighting the Soviet invasion, as their grandparents had done over sixty years ago. How history repeated itself, the big soldier grimly thought. This time we would win, we had our allies, brought out of hiding and now ready to join us to defend their, our, sacred homeland. No matter how long this takes, how much blood is spilled, we will prevail and fight our common enemy to the end.
***
In the huge grey stone castle atop the precipitous cliff, battle plans slowly formed in the minds of people who were no longer human – who had preternatural power beyond the scope and understanding of all but a few humans, now their allies by coincidence. For now. The leader, standing seven feet tall, spoke loudly and grimly in a voice that deserved respect, servitude: “We have seen from our forward observers that the area here” – he pointed at the map on the study wall with a laser pointer – “and here is occupied by lead elements of the 6th Soviet Tank Army and 8th Mechanised Infantry Brigade. They are dug in, in defensive positions, to consolidate their ground and have deployed a number of mobile Air Defence weapons to provide layered defence. These systems include the Lada short range point defence missile, the Skoda medium range missile, the Trabant long range missile together with an assortment of shoulder fired FSO and Zil missiles and Yugo anti-aircraft artillery. Our air attacks have failed to destroy the Soviet defences. When we destroy one position, they bring up two more to replace it.”
With this disclosure, the leader smiled painfully. “We knocked out eighty-three tanks, two-dozen APCs, numerous missile and gun positions and crews and Soviet infantry besides. Yet this action cost us a third of our air force and twenty pilots killed or missing. This can’t continue – we will lose our prestigious air force and be naked to more Soviet aggression; our beloved country of Finland will be theirs for the taking…”
Coming out of afterburner to save fuel with speed at six hundred knots, both huge Sukhoi jets increased height leaving their base behind them on the receding coastline. Passing thirty five thousand feet after three minutes of climb they slowed the climb as they came to the intruder’s altitude. Both “Spin Scan” radars in the interceptors’ nose stayed blank; their search range was only eighty kilometres with a lock on range of fifty in good conditions. Old radars using vacuum tubes took some careful handling to work properly. Here in the clear air at altitude with no weather to confuse the radar or ground clutter to give false echoes, conditions couldn’t be better. It would be less than a minute when they acquired the target at roughly fifty miles distance; that would run down to thirty miles lock on when the radar could guide a missile successfully. Radar seekers in the missile would seek out the enemy and obliterate it. Trying his Infra-Red Search and Track sensor to find the target, Tupelov grumbled to himself when his screen remained blank. He knew he was out of range and a head-on intercept had the least probability of success. A tail chase would be best suited due to the heat of the engines but precious fuel would be used to overhaul the target plane. This intercept profile was a head-on one, so Ground Radar guided them to the target. Commands came through Tupelov’s headphones that he relayed to his wingman, but he would be able to find the enemy anyhow due to his experience and it being daylight and clear weather. *** On the ground tension mounted. This had never happened before for all intruders had turned away of their own accord or been escorted by the interceptors at a range little less than 200 miles. This was much closer – it was different. It must be an American spy plane, one of their modified Boeing airliners full of listening gear and cameras and God knows what to monitor Soviet radars and communications in the area. Could it be a bomber, one of the dangerous B-52’s armed with nuclear bombs? What if it was a rogue pilot on a one-way doomsday mission, intent on starting a Third World War? His training quickly stopped him from second-guessing. Procedures had to be followed. If the alert fighters failed then ground-based missiles would be armed and turned towards the distant target until forty miles away, then launched. A last minute insurance policy for one could never be too sure. Mother Russia needed to be protected from the enemy Capitalists. There! At a search range of fifty-three miles the “Spin Scan” radar of Red Bird Two painted the target, not a faint paint like the Long Range radar had picked up before but a firm image. It must be a large aircraft! “Red Bird Two to Red Bird Leader. I have picked up a contact off our nose at fifty-three miles. Do you have it yet? Over.” “Aaah, no Red Bird Two, don’t have it on my scope yet. What heading is it on?” “Off our nose now passing fifty miles. Heading is five degrees off our track. Over.” “I have it now, Red Bird Two, I have him on my scope. Stick close and be observant. I will contact Ground Control for further instructions. Out.”
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