NEWSFLASH! Dieselpunk Flash Fiction From The Legacy Universe

4TH FLASH: GIN AND TOXIC (AUGUST 2, 1930)

He dislodged the dagger from his liver with a huff and a snarl. A deep line of dark vitae spewed out into the world, tarnished his dyed red military overcoat. He didn't care. There were worse pains in life, and he'd suffered most of them. What mattered most was the automobile.

Green Packard. The gang driving it. Getting away.

Ex-sanguination couldn't keep him down. He had endured the Sky War. One deep, measured breath. He ran.

Down the way...

"He's good as dead!" Ruff pulled the Packard hard at the corner to get her onto working class Gervais Street. The toll bridge had to be reached and surpassed. Even at a maddening speed, the South Carolina heat had Ruff sweating bullets. Right. The heat.

Gullet, Ruff's partner in crime, held on for dear life. "Your gonna get us both killed! between you and the heat! Robbing this state in the dead of summer!" His terror did nothing to stop the flask of gin from hitting Gullet's flabby lips. He spilled as much as he slurped.

Gervais Street was before them, a literal downhill coast from here on out, and at this hour of the night, no one to cramp the road. Southerners needed their beauty sleep. These boys from up North had stormed off with capital, and intended to keep it. The Packard hit a mean eighty--

And struck a solid object at the corner of Gervais and Assembly, just past the Capitol with her Union cannonball scars. Their pursuer! He gripped the spare tire like a praying mantis, forbidding and vise-like. The force alone inspired swerving in the Packard. She ate up road, the curb and a a standing traffic light. The light increased the swerve. Green Packard spun, topsy-turvy.

Ruff got ejected. Gullet too. They laid out on an unpaved road, the toll bridge over the Congaree's whitewater valley tantalizingly close. Cabbage in the hundreds drifted in the humid air. Ruff catered to his fractured arm. Gullet catered to the Reaper.

Crossing the street, the Vow stampeded so Ruff could see him clearly. The red soldier's overcoat. The stitched up puzzle of gas masks with the chain mail tank mask over the eyes. The horrifying tension of flexed leather gloves. Blood gushing out of a man who moved as if it held no soul. Brown boots under olive gaiters, charging. His hands were outstretched, aimed at Ruff's road-scorched neck.

"Wh-wh-who--?"

"The janitor in the bank was a veteran, Ruff. A veteran! You have gained my undivided attention. I know every nook and cranny of Columbia. My trench. My war. When soldiers suffer, I hear it. I am the Vow, and the Vow repays..."