Dust on the Mind - 1

by Paul Jutras

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS

Tammy went through the slum streets with her hallow looking eyes and skeletal frame of a figure. She approached the steps of a boarded up brownstone. A man in a fancy suit smiled as she approached and held out a sack.

"Whatever you're selling I need a boost." She said faintly. "Anything you got..."

"Anything huh?" The man said with a gleam in his eye. "Try DUST. It's new on the mark and will make you look beautiful and feel wonderful."

"I'll pay!" She cried with withdrawal pains. "Anything to make the pain go away."

Shoving the money into the man's hands, she grabbed the sack and poured it into her mouth. Her mouth was open, her left arm raised up high and her back arched as she flesh and blood transformed into hollow plastic. A beautiful plastic woman where a sickly real one stood a moment before.

"Did you see that." A man said as he grabbed hold of his son's baseball bat. Other men grabbed rocks and sticks as they approached the drug dealer. He ran up the steps into the building where a moment later a man in a zoot suit appeared.

"I am The Headmaster here!" He declared as rocket launchers raised out of trash cans and lasers appeared from open windows. They opened fire and drove the people off. Not before one guy grabbed the mannequin to take her to the hospital.
 

"This is Rick Miller." Rick said as he picked up the phone on the airforce base. "Yes my sister is name... what? Is this some kind of joke?"

Taking a jeep, Rick rushed to the hospital where the doctors performed every test they could. "Our cat scan shows brain activity, but it's a mystery how she's alive in her current state.

"How? Who did this?" Rick demanded.

"Some super scientific drug dealer running things from Suicide Alley." The doctors explained as Rick snapped a pencil between finger and thumb. "He's not the first living mannequin we've got in. This month we've been over run with them."

"Not for long!"

Getting together with General Lava, Miller got the okay to lead a crack commando squad against The Headmaser's hideout. Rick was in charge of air cover as a military team stormed the place in a way no police team could ever do.

Soon smoke filled the air with an almost sulfur smell as lasers and rockets attacked from both sides. For awhile the military group were pinned down, but when they got their opening they went for it. Rick's plane was shot down and he was force to parachute out and join the ground force. They stormed the halls and stunned The Headmaster's armed drug dealers.


"C'mon you piece of slime!" Rick said as he reached the main man himself. He rushed forward, grabbed him by the arm and threw him into two of his body guards. "You're the one whose got to go. Your drug deals are finished!"

As The Headmasters reinforcements forced Rick to retreat the one thing that kept going through his head was: I can't quite now."

"Range, 200 yards and closing."  Sgt. Mamoru said as he pressed the button to release a high power multi- missile launching cannon at The Headmasters base. Both ground and air attack continued outside and shook the rooms and hallways Rick tried to escape through.

"We got some in, but I want everyone!" General Lava ordered as the team continued to stormed the fortress of a base.

"They must not escape!" The Headmaster shouted. Realizing the pressure was getting to him he took but a pinch of Dust and taste it. The dose was enough to calm his body functions for a short time. "The others must not enter!"

"I can always count on my drugs!" The Headmaster laughed as Sgt. Mamoru and the other stormed into his office and knocked the bag of Dust into the air. They all looked on in horror as Dust spilled on top of its creator and turned him into nothing more than a handsome statue ready to be put on display in some men's shop.

The military then rounded up the rest of The Headmaster's drug ring and turned them over to the federal police for trial. There might not be anything more Rick could do for his sister, but at least he knew nobody else would ever end up like her.
 
 
 

THE END



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