This Rotten World (Book 1) by The Vocabulariast Page A

asked.
    Joan looked
at her, a wan smile on her face. "We'll find out soon enough." They
walked towards another room. This room had a giant observation window, and she
could see Courtney strapped to a gurney, his head whipping from side to side,
looking for something. His eyes were red-rimmed and his teeth were clenched.
    Joan held
her card up to a security scanner, and a light on the door handled blinked green.
She heard the bolt of the door unlock, and then she turned the door handle.
They stepped inside, and Courtney's eyes fixed on them. For a second he was
quiet, and then he began thrashing furiously at his bonds. His hands wriggled
and clawed at them, which would have been comical if he didn't have the stench
of uncontained violence and rage about him.
    Clara took
one look into Courtney's eyes, and it felt as if a rock had dropped into the
pit of her stomach. She didn't know what to do.
    Joan looked
at her and said, "Talk to him."
    Clara
lifted her arm off of Joan's shoulder and hobbled over to Courtney. She looked
into his once beautiful brown eyes and said, "Courtney? Can you hear
me?"
    His only
response was a low growl. His eyes focused on her, and for a second she saw a
glimmer of recognition, but it disappeared quicker than a dream, and then he
was trying to get at her, straining the straps that held him down.
    "Courtney.
It's me Clara. Give me some sort of sign that you can hear me." There was
no sign, just more growling and straining.
    Joan put a
hand on her shoulder, and reality hit home for Clara. She didn't want to do it,
but tears escaped from her eyes. Joan put her shoulder under Clara's arm and
guided her into another room, away from the sight of the man that would have
one day been her husband.
    Clara made
her way to the bed in the room and lay there sobbing. She didn't know how long
she had cried for, but when she was done and ready to leave, she discovered
that Joan had gone, and the door was locked. Her sadness became rage, and as
she banged on the door, she could hear the nurse Molly down the hallway echoing
her sentiment.

Chapter 24: Roasted
Goat
     
    Old Han
cursed the day that he had hired Dustin. He should have known better once he
saw that ridiculous tattoo on the man's forearm. Tattoos meant poor decisions.
Poor decisions meant less profits. But what else did one expect from a lazy
American who could only find work slinging drinks at a bar? He had no pride.
None of them did. Now he stood there in front of his bar, soaking up blood from
the green carpet with a mop bucket that looked like it had never actually been
clean at any point in its existence. Who could say if it ever had? He had
bought it used for 2 dollars when he had first opened the bar.
    He looked
around the bar and silently cursed it. The keys on his key ring jangled as he
furiously attacked the carpet, grunting and muttering under his breath. He
would have to call in that other lazy American and try to fill in Dustin's
shift. The fury that flooded through his veins drove him to spit on his own
floor.
    "Stupid
fucking American. Motherfuck to him. Motherfuck to all of them." With a
swift whisk of the dirty mop, he wiped away all signs of his anger. The green
carpet was stained. He could live with that. What he couldn't live with was the
thought of having to hire another lowlife scumbag off the street to serve beer
to the people that came into his bar.
    He had
never seen such a disgusting lot of people. Oddly enough, as much as he hated
them all, he would rather be cleaning the floor of The Sleazy Goat than sharing
the bed with his shrew of a wife. It was her fault that they were stuck in this
lazy country in the first place. If he had it all to do over again, he would
have talked her into going to France. But no, she had wanted to come to
America. They could be in Paris right now, drinking wine and looking at the
Eiffel Tower. But, no... they were in Portland, Oregon... America, land of the
lazy, home of the idiotic.
    Within two
years,