Hernias and Villians

Andre stared at the scars on his face in the mirror, each one a testament to his refusal to back down from a fight. Thirty years after high school, and he still took pride in never having run, no matter how outnumbered. Back then, using threats of violence helped him to extract homework, money, and food from his classmates. Admittedly, being part werewolf made it easier.

Being a bully in school was perfect training for his current role as gang leader. From his 10th floor nightclub, Andre the Cruel ruled over the border town of Golgak. The vodka bars, the drug dens and the brothels were ruled by his outfit.

On that gloomy Siberian evening, as he sat in his nightclub regaling his guests with tales of past battles won, his reverie was interrupted by Bolver.

“Boss. We have a problem.”

“Speak.” Andre commanded, eying the short but vicious soldier who had been with him for a decade.

“Korl, the leader of the Volga gang, has kidnapped Maria.”

Maria ran the Vodka Palace, Andre’s top moneymaker in Golgak. The thought of losing Maria twisted like a knife in his gut, the spines of Andres’ werewolf hair bristled against his jacket, and he salivated at the thought of blood.

“One of our own, kidnapped?” He restrained himself from howling. “Korl must be punished.”

He knew Korl. It wouldn’t be fitting to send a 25-year-old to beat up an opposing gang leader. Andre would need to confront him himself. 

“Send Korl a message. This is a dispute, not between our gangs, but between us. I will fight him man to man.”

Bolver departed with the message. Andre returned to his table of bored nightclub hostesses holding smiles as frozen as the Siberian tundra. With enough alcohol, Andre could forget how many times they heard he pushed Mikael’s body under the ice in the civil war already.

A few hours and many shots of vodka later, Andre was in good spirits when Bolver returned.

“Boss. Korl has agreed to a duel, with one condition.”

“And that is?” Andre wondered what Korl’s choice of weapons might be. 

“In a fight, you must not touch his hernia. He just had it repaired by a surgeon in Irkutsk.”

It took Andre a moment to process this.

“A ‘hernia’? How will I know where it is?” He laughed, a laugh mixed with a werewolf’s yelp, which made the frozen smiles vanish from the people seated at his table.

“Boss, there’s a patch on his hernia that says: ’Don’t hit this.’” 

“Don’t hit this?” Andre remembered the notes he taped on classmates in school. “Is that a good look for a gang boss?”

They both glanced over at Andre’s right-hand man, Blat, who carried instructions on how to relocate his shoulder, tied around his neck.

“Tell him I agree.” Andre screwed the car on the bottle of vodka on his table.  He was no longer just a gang leader; he was a warrior, hungry for the thrill of combat.

The next morning, he climbed into his truck, the bulletproof one with the machine gun mounted on the roof, and headed toward Mzlow. He passed many strange creatures on the road. Animals that looked like humans. Humans that looked like animals. East of the Urals, after the war, the radiation did strange things to living creatures’ bodies and minds.

Andre swerved to avoid a weaving tanker truck, and that’s when it happened. His back transformed into a blinding constellation of pain. The doctor had called it sciatica, said it resulted from his wolf DNA bending his human spine in odd directions. He killed the doctor, but he never forgot what the doctor said.

In blinding pain, Andre stopped the truck. He put a hand on the pistol on his hip.

Dozens of trucks and cars passed by as he waited twenty minutes for the pain to diminish.

He would miss his duel with Korl if he delayed any longer.

Laying down might calm his back, but he was wedged behind the steering wheel, unable to move.

He rolled down a window and held out a hand.

A small delivery truck stopped. A milkman with small shoulders came to his window and looked up.

“Are you ok?”

A stream of threats and expletives came to Andre’s mind. But he couldn’t even hold his pistol with the blinding pain he was in.

Andre whispered, “can…you…help…me?”

“Help you?”

“Get me out of this truck, “ Andre growled, his voice a mix of desperation and annoyance. “My back.”

“Oh! Back pain happens to everyone.”

The milkman helped pull him out of the truck and laid him down by the side of the road. The pain in his back went from blinding to excruciating. After a few moments, Andre felt recuperated enough to pull himself up.

“Thanks, bud,” he muttered, trying to regain some of his dignity. “If you are ever in Golgak, drinks are on me at the Stellar Nightclub, tenth floor.”

“Sure thing, boss. Now I’ll be on my way.” The small man got into his truck and disappeared into the distance.

Five minutes later, Andre slowly and painfully pulled himself back into his truck. Putting a hand to his hip, he realized his pistol was missing. The expletives he held back earlier burst out. 

He couldn’t turn around. His need for revenge couldn’t wait.

He finished the drive to Molver, descending into the abandoned quarry where Korl invited him to meet.

Korl stood in front of a parked bus, holding a shotgun. An icy wind howled around him. The patch on his side was exactly where Bolver said it would be.

Andre strode up to him, his gaze unwavering. His opponent had no idea what weapon he might be carrying, or not carrying. “You have something of mine I want back,” Andre declared, his voice booming through the empty quarry.

“You can’t have her. You’ll have to fight me,” Korl replied, jiggling his shotgun.

Andre pointed at the weapon. “Guns are for amateurs.”

Korl’s tiger talons clenched and unclenched the shotgun, then it dropped to the ground with a clatter. “Claw to claw then,” Korl muttered, unfurling his giant talons.

Andre glanced at his own wolf paws. “Let us fight as humans. Machetes.” While Korl contemplated the proposal, Andre retrieved two machetes from his truck, and held them out. “Take your pick.”

“Do you consider me a fool?” Korl snarled, waving the machetes aside. “Tigers don’t fight with knives.” He darted into his bus and reappeared holding the new weapon. He yanked a cord. Smoke rose in the air, and the chainsaw rattled to life in his powerful arms. His eyes glinted with malice, “How about chainsaws?”

Andre raised an eyebrow. “Chainsaws? That’s a bit… messy, don’t you think?”

Korl smirked. “Messy is the point, Andre the Cruel.”

Villains in Siberia traveled with chainsaws. They were essential for clearing fallen trees on the way to terrorized villages. Andre limped to his truck and brought out his. As he started the rattling beast, he felt the pain stirring in his back again, but he did not show it.

The two men stood face-to-face, each gripping their howling chainsaws. The quarry filled with smoke and echoed with the sound of imminent violence. A wild grin spread across his face, the same reckless grin he wore during countless schoolyard brawls.

Andre’s werewolf instincts were kicking in. He moved in, stalking his prey. 

Korl, a survivor of countless battles, knew how to fight. He swung his chainsaw in a wide arc to push Andre back.

Andre parried, and a clash of steel echoed as their rattling blades met. Sparks flew, illuminating faces contorted with rage. 

 “Stop!” a woman’s voice screeched.

Andre took a step back, keeping an eye on his opponent, and searched for the source of the interloper. Korl put a hand on his hernia and also looked for the origin of the voice.

A face appeared from the darkness. It was Maria.  “Chainsaws are for peasants. Let’s see which of you two villains can handle the most vodka.”  

Andre considered the pain pulsating up and down his back. He stopped the chainsaw’s engine. Korl did the same, hunched slightly, and held a hand on the label that said “Don’t Hit This.”

Maria poured two shot glasses and held them out to the worst villains in the Trans-Siberia-Mongolian wasteland. She nodded at Andre and winked at Korl.

The two men drank, grimaced, and howled at each other, then held out their empty glasses to be refilled.

The last coherent thought Andre had, before waking up with a brutal hangover, was his daughter cheerfully chirping, ‘Dad, we plan to marry,’ while Korl’s tiger claw delicately cradled Maria’s human hand ever so gently.