Motorbreath by Patrick Winters

Motorbreath

by Patrick Winters

“Buncha’ girly-lookin’, shit-for-taste posers, man.”

“Yeah, dude. Makes me wanna barf up my burritos.”

Despite his words—and despite the disgusted look on his tanned crater-face—Reggie “The Reg” Mendoza took another bite of the bean burrito they’d picked up at the food truck earlier. He knew it would be hell on his bowels later on, but the flavor of those burritos was always too righteous to ignore. He scarfed down the last bite and tossed the wrapper up onto the dash, wiping his greasy hands on his Venom vest before setting them back to the wheel of his beat-up van.

“Jesus, man! Would you look at that one!” Donald “Riffer” Stewart groaned from the passenger seat. He sported torn-up jeans and an Exodus tee, both of which were in need of serious washing. “He looks like fuckin’ Farrah Fawcett, for fuck’s sake!”

The Reg scanned the crowd of people gathered across the street, tracking where Riffer’s finger was aimed. When he saw the dude in question, blonde hair all teased up and standing with his arm around a major babe, the Reg groaned in kind.

“What the hell does a hottie like her see in a total butt-munch like him? Kissin’ him’s gotta be like kissin’ yer sister!”

“Cheeuh!” the Reg said, shaking his head, his sneer growing.

The whole van gave a creaky jostle as their new compadre moved around in the back, grunting and smacking his beefy limbs at the side-lining. 

He was getting antsy.

“Calm it down, Motorbreath!” the Reg said over his shoulder. “We’re giving it a little longer, in case a few more of these dweebs show up!”

“Yeah, big guy—then you can end their setlist before it even begins!”

Riffer craned his arm back and around his seat, palm up. A big, gnarled hand with deep gray skin came out of the darkness of the back compartment and slapped it five.

Riffer chuckled. So did their new buddy.

The van quieted again, settling in the protective shadows of the alley; the Reg and Riffer looked back to the line of would-be concert-goers milling about outside the Screaming Mimi. They’d been lining up for nearly an hour now, and in ten or so more minutes the doors would open. Then all those sissified posers and poorly misguided chicks would be rushing inside, all of them screaming for shit bands like Dirrty and the Hot Lips.

God damn Glam, man. That’d been Riffer and the Reg’s motto for quite some time now, and they held it close to their hearts.

As a proud metalhead since his early teens (back when that rad cover of Iron Maiden had tempted him into a whole new musical world), the Reg utterly loathed what was becoming of not only the local music scene, but of the whole music business. It was all going tits up—and all of the lame-ass posers were just fine with it. There’d been plenty of times when Riffer and the Reg had gone to the Screaming Mimi to hear choice groups like Two-Fisted and the Groins shred out some tunes; now, the joint just catered to all the wimpy Glam bands that were constantly popping up, like zits on a geek. And all of the biggest concerts, music stores, and even MTV had gone from promoting the greatest bands out there to peddling shit like Winger and Poison to the masses. Honest musicianship and heavy-metal artistry were being replaced more and more with a stupid image, pansy latex, shitty attitudes, and songs with so much complexity, a toddler could’ve written them. It was a travesty, and true music lovers like Riffer and the Reg had to suffer through it all. 

Bon Jovi being constantly played on the radio; seeing all those dweebs at school wearing that makeup and sporting the big poofy hair all the time (and all of the ladies loving them for it); turning on the tube, just to see some awful front-man prancing around a stage in front of thousands, each too stupid to do anything but eat it up—it was all getting way out of hand.

God damn Glam, man. Truly and sincerely. But then the Reg started to think: maybe God wasn’t the answer for bringing an end to all this crazy musical injustice. 

Maybe the other guy would lend a hand, instead . . .

And that got the Reg to thinking even more.

He eventually told Riffer about his grand idea during lunch the Tuesday before last, whispering about it in their secluded corner of the cafeteria. The Reg brought an old copy of The Vault of Horror to illustrate his plan and show the things they’d need to go about accomplishing it. Riffer liked the idea—really liked the idea—but he said that all of that Hell and black magic stuff might work in tunes, but that it couldn’t possibly be real. It took some convincing on the Reg’s part, but by the time they headed back to home room, he’d got his head-banger in-arms to go along with it. The thought of it alone got them to grinning real big the rest of the day. It made more than a few of their teachers leery—and rightfully so.

Riffer ended up getting the chalk from his kid sister. And he nabbed the candles from his ma’s attic. The Reg had a harder time of catching the cat, but when he finally found one in a back alley, it was big and fat and full of what they needed.

They put it all to use last Friday night, drawing the pentagram and arranging the candles in the darkness of the Reg’s garage. They lit them up and cut the cat’s throat in the center of the unholy sign, chanting some odd words as the cat flailed by its tail. When the last drop of red hit the concrete, the candles went right out—and from the dark corner of the garage, a raspy voice asked them what they wanted.

The two friends trembled a little as they answered; but the voice said they would have what they desired. And when the candles flickered back to life, their new compadre was standing there in the corner—naked, muscled, and looking at them with an ugly grin:

Motorbreath.

The Reg had always thought that demons were supposed to be thin and red and snakelike, with huge bat-wings, like you saw in Biblical paintings and such. But this one didn’t have any wings, and it was built like a gray-skinned Hulk Hogan, looking more like a great big lump of Play-Doh than a serpent. 

Riffer had wanted to call the creature Lemmy, but when the Reg suggested naming it after a sweet song instead, they’d elected to call him Motorbreath, after the Metallica jam. And it seemed plenty fitting, because whenever the hunch-backed thing got up in their faces, its breath smelled like diesel fuel and scorched rubber. And it got up in their faces a lot, because the thing was surprisingly friendly with them—more like a doofy Labrador than a denizen of the infernal pit. But once they started training him—teaching him what they wanted him to do—he showed just how damn mean he could be.

Motorbreath proved his incredible strength to them by ripping apart whole phone books that were stacked together. And they had him practice his swing on some life-size cardboard cutouts they took off a truck at the local record store. Motorbreath hadn’t just torn the likes of Bret Michaels and Tom Keifer to shred but he’d been quick about it and even seemed to enjoy it.

Once the two metalheads figured their big boy was ready for the real thing, they looked to the fliers stapled up around town, searching for someone or somewhere to wreak havoc on. That’s where they’d found out about Screaming Mimi and tonight’s show.

The Reg’s watch said it was three minutes ‘til the start of the concert; but for the three compadres, it was showtime.

The Reg turned around, looking their satanic buddy in his huge, expectant face, feeling like a proud coach before his little leaguers.

“Okay Motorbreath, time to go in fast and brutal, like a Kerry King solo!”

“Yeah, demon dude!” shouted Riffer, smacking the demon another five. “No remorse! Seek and destroy!”

The Reg turned back around and pointed out to the crowd across the street.

“Sic ‘em, monster man!”

Motorbreath let out some gurgles and nodded his head, smiling at them. Then he turned around, opened up the van’s back doors, and leapt outside, the whole van shaking and squeaking as his bulk went out.

Riffer snatched a cassette tape up from the floor and jammed it into the player, cranking up the volume. Then he and the Reg were leaning forward in their seats, wanting to get a good look at the coming carnage.

Motorbreath lumbered past the side of the van and out into the street right as “Ace of Spades” kicked on, thumping and thrashing to beat all. The demon was across the road in no time, charging right at the long line of concert-goers. Riffer and the Reg cheered him on over the hollering growls of Lemmy Kilmister and as Motorbreath fell upon the first unsuspecting dude in the crowd, they started applauding.

Some girl screamed. Then a few more joined in, but when Motorbreath tore his first victim clean in half everyone lost it.

Riffer and the Reg whooped and threw up horns as their crazy compadre went hog-wild on every person he could reach, snapping, bludgeoning, and ripping apart whoever fell into his sights. He was a monstrous combine, running the crowd over and spitting them out as they started to flee. Limbs hit the ground. Red splashed across the street in buckets. One guy was even bashed into the wall of the Screaming Mimi, his head smashing open like one of Gallagher’s watermelons. 

“Righteous!” Riffer yelled. 

He smacked a triumphant hand across the Reg’s shoulder, and the Reg offered him a high five in return.

This was even better than the Reg could have imagined. It was glorious. Fan-fucking-tastic.

And sure, Motorbreath wouldn’t be able to get all of the posers that were fleeing for their stupid lives, but he’d get enough of them and teach them all a lesson either way. He’d make them think twice about ever going to see some lame glam band again.

If they set him loose at some more shit-concerts coming up in the next few weeks, maybe glam would eventually die out entirely, all the wussies gone back to being your average preps and geeks, too afraid to even come out at night for fear of the brutal and relentless onslaught of the Unholy Trinity.

But until then, Riffer and the Reg had one hell of a show to enjoy, and as good old Motorbreath caved in some guy’s skull, all the Reg could think was:

This is so metal.

See more of Patrick Winters' work at: http://wintersauthor.azurewebsites.net/Publications/List