Scavver

[Cheomesh]

"Hey, capullo, what the fuck do you think you're doing in our building?"

The abrupt sound of the man's insult snapped my attention up from my work.  There were three of them, two men and a woman, all three in matching brown over shirts.  Black pants.  Armed.  I watched them from across the box, an old relic bolted to a narrow pillar in the middle of the dusty room, a monolithic treasure trove for the wire it contained.  They were waiting.

"Fucking keh, answer me when I fucking talk to you!"  It was the same man, undoubtedly their leader.  I couldn't place the shitty uniform, probably some crappy vagrant gang, all members present.  Their show of weapons bothered me, but wasn't surprising; who travels unarmed outside of a lawzone?  I gripped my steel pipe, dinged and battered from use; dings that told the tale of walls and boards and skulls.  I kept it hidden best I could, all three feet of it, behind my pillar as I waited for their move.  I wasn't going to give up my spoils for any two man gang and their whore.

"My name, little gewad," I retorted from across my cover.  "Is Jacob Goodrich, and you had best respect it if you want to find another place to crash for the night."  They didn't seem to like that; the "leader's" face turned a nasty shade of purple.  He was kind of pudgy, and it looked funny.  I chuckled, and it got deeper.  I gripped the pipe tighter.  His two cronies didn't know what to do, they stood there in our moment of chat, fingering their pieces; a pipe and a knife -- a pretty crude one if the light didn't deceive me.  I wondered if that girl knew how to use her sticker, or if she'd been making her way as a party-pussy her whole life.  "Probably just for show." I thought aloud, which instantly made my situation worse.

"Bitch!" my favorite man screamed as he ran pel mel across the junk-strewn floor at me, bringing his bent metal pipe to bear.  I stepped out from behind my Alamo, bringing my own to my defense.  The dumbass stopped just short of my reach, swinging wildly down at my head with a grunt.  I countered, moving out of his line and bringing my own down, two handed, to connect with his skull.  It broke, I could feel it, and he fell with a lifeless thud.  The other man came on with the hang-around whore close behind.  I dodged his whistling blow deftly, letting him pound by.  Swiftly, I slid one hand halfway down the pipe to drive it end first into the woman's chest; her breath came out in a massive wind, and she collapsed.

Turning to face my new problem, I brought my hands back together and the pipe up just in time to deflect his strike from the top of my head.  They made an intensely satisfying clang as they came together.  I stepped out of the line, to the left, bringing my weapon down on him just a moment too slow.  We circled for a moment, eyeballing each other.  He certainly had some skill...

I disengaged from our circle, stepping backwards and hoping to invite his attack.  My back pressed against the prize I fought to protect.  He came at me, again from above as I stepped right, avoiding the blow, and landed a solid attack on his forearms.  His pipe clattered hollowly onto the ground as he cried out in pain, stumbling away from me.  I glimpsed at the woman, still on the ground trying to regain her senses.  That was a tough blow; she was mumbling (or trying) something I could not hear.

Boots pounding behind me jarred me back, letting me turn just before his flying kick landed.  He sailed past, almost comically, as I narrowly avoided his assault.  He hit the ground like the sack of shit he was, and laid there a moment before struggling to stand.  I eyeballed the two, mere feet apart, as if it was some great spectacle to see them stand.  I'd never done this well in a crap before.  I savored my moment as I strode heavily over to the boy, who was half sitting up on his right arm.

"Say good night!" I screamed as I brought the pipe down on his head, knocking him back down.  It made an almost hollow sound, a skull sound.  I did it a few more times for good measure -- you can't be too safe.  The blood and brains were an unsightly mess, and the shallow cries of that unfortunate woman made for a very gristly scene.  I did not rejoice in my kill, but I relished in my survival.  I turned to my left, standing over the still-winded and obviously not quite tough woman.  She raised her crappy knife towards me, an almost pitiful gesture.  I felt a pang of guilt; I'd just killed the only two people she'd probably ever known.  

She stared at me, her armed hand shaking, as she tried to make speech.  I must have hit her pretty hard.  It was something about rape.  It mattered little.  Rape didn't have the appeal I thought it would in my younger days.  Poor wretch probably thought I was going to do her in.  I brought my pipe against the inside of her hand, knocking the knife free.  It skittered across the ground a few inches, just far enough to remove it from her reach.  She slid herself away as I stooped to take it for myself.  I locked eyes with her.  They were green, I liked that; it went well with the intense fear I saw there.

"The fuck out of here." I said with a measure of bold that wasn't quite my own.  "If I ever so much as hear you again, nothing from Anasas will save your sorry ass."  She looked away and shakily stood.  Shook as much from fear as her single battle wound.  She stumbled to a wall and let that lead her free, out the hole in the wall from which they came.  I watched her until she was gone, hoping she didn't pack fire somewhere on her person.  When she was gone, I turned back to my pillar, freeing some clippers from my travel bag and began snipping away whatever I could take.

M.

[Cheomesh]

Did some editing.  Premise is the same, changed how somethings worked out, added some more "sounds" and the like.

M.

[Steerpike]

[blockquote=Cheomesh]They were armed, this bothered me, but wasn't surprising in the least[/blockquote]This is a run-on.  I'm not sure if its intentional (sort of stream-of-consciousness), but it was a bit jarring, at least for me.[blockquote=Cheomesh]I wasn't quite too fond of rape[/blockquote]Too many adjectives.  "I wasn't fond of rape," would do fine.

The Alamo reference kind of threw me - is this the near future?  It's a bit like someone saying "Christ!" or something.

Dialogue is decent, if pretty heavy on the obscenities, but that clearly fits the tone.

Somehow this feels almost more like a comic book script than a short story: the emphasis on precise movements in the action sequence, etc.  I don't get a great vision of how everyone looks, or what the setting looks like, and I realize that too much description would stall the pacing.

[Cheomesh]

I'll fix those bits, thanks.  It's not the "near" future per se, and come to think of it an Alamo reference isn't all that great an idea.

How can the dialogue be improved?

As for character descriptions, my personal philosophy is to let people formulate their own image, unless it's something important, like a crippled limb or some kind of mutation.  Do you think that detracts from the overall feeling?  I've never quite been too good at getting someone fleshed out without acting as if I was just telling you what he or she looked like.

For the over detailed action, this is a kind of influence from my WMA studies, where passing left or right matters.  Do you think it messes up the flow?

M.

EDITED first post for above suggestions.

[Steerpike]

There's nothing wrong with the flow: in fact, detailed descriptions of anything other than the combat might interfere with the pacing of it (I've read very detailed, drawn-out combat scenes, but only a few good ones).  Likewise beefed up or lengthier dialogue might screw with the flow.  I guess to the extent that I have criticisms I'd criticize the scope of the passage: everything relates to the central fight, so there isn't really room for anything else.  That's fine - you clearly set out to write a fight scene.

[Cheomesh]

Yeah, it's more or less just supposed to be a fight scene.  Generally, you don't talk much while trying to survive :p

The next section, assuming I make something of it, would have some more conversational dialogue.  How do you think the quality of this (short) piece could be improved?

M.