Read PDF

Foreword

Knuckle Supper is a dish that ain't for the squeamish, that's for sure. But if you've got an appetite for vampire business that goes steps beyond the pale, then Drew Stepek may have your bloody number.

Forget the neutered, neurotic undead that pop-culture's been feeding you. The dirty, amoral gangs of bloodsuckers that roam the streets of Los Angeles in Knuckle Supper are unsentimental, unrepentant
killers, preying on anybody who gets in their way (and a lot of other folks, too). It's a hell of a ride, but like I said before, it ain't for everyone.

Part satire, part gore fest, part gut-punch, Knuckle Supper is a brutal book, complete with a horrific, streets-eye view of the grimy and gory lives of a new breed of Los Angeles gangster. The jaded, drug-addicted vampires whose unpleasant un-lives are so violent and mean, they barely
live out a regular human lifespan, much less make it anywhere close to
sainted immortality.

There’s no philosophy and no lofty proclamations about what it MEANS to live so long and be so different from the herd. No, the vamps in Knuckle Supper are so animal-like in their behavior, their lives
are brutish and short…. their reality so grimy and dank, the book reads like a nature special about psychopaths. In some strange alternate reality, Iceberg Slim wrote a splatterpunk riff in Less than Zero and Knuckle Supper was the unholy spawn.

As you’re about to find out, Drew Stepek is one sick fuck. I’ve known that since our days together roaming the halls of Larry Flynt Publications. If you ever have the chance to meet him, don’t be fooled by his relaxed, easy-does-it, California bonhomie. The Dude’s got issues.

Sure: You could fill a nice-sized suburban pool with the blood that’s spilled during the course of this book, but despite all that (or maybe because of it all), he’s doing something with Knuckle Supper that’s been
kinda lacking of late in vampire lit…he’s fusing good ol’ blood and guts with a mighty conscience, exploring real issues and not coming up with any easy answers. Queasy answers, maybe, but no, nothing easy.
Nothing pat. Nothing remotely safe for the mall vamps and their ilk.

And bless his dark little heart for it.

So yeah, like I said before, Knuckle Supper is a dish that ain’t for the squeamish. But if you’re ready for a new kind of vampire and a new kind of vampire tale, you’ve found your sanguinary Shangri-La. But a
word of warning: You might want to start flipping the pages on an empty stomach lest you find yourself getting a bit overwhelmed by what’s about to follow.

Tighten your seatbelts, kids – it’s gonna be a bloody read.

Gabe Soria / Author - Life Sucks!

Children of the Night

Children of the Night is a private, non-profit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1979. They are dedicated to assisting children between the ages of 11 and 17 who are forced to prostitute on the streets for food to eat and a place to sleep. Since 1979 they have rescued girls and boys from prostitution and the domination of vicious pimps.

And they provide all programs with the support of private donations. They are making a difference in the lives of hundreds of children each year. Their commitment to rescuing these children from the
ravages of prostitution is shared with a small but committed group of detectives, FBI agents, and prosecutors in Los Angeles, Hollywood, Santa Ana, Anaheim, San Diego, other areas of California, Las Vegas, Portland, Billings, Montana; Seattle, Washington; Miami, New York, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Phoenix, Hawaii and Washington D.C. — all stops on the child prostitution circuit. And their numbers keep growing
as more and more dedicated individuals become concerned about the welfare of these desperate children.
Child prostitutes require specialized care for effective intervention.

Most of the children victimized by prostitution were first victimized by a parent or early caregiver. Most have been tortured by treacherous pimps, and many testify in lengthy court proceedings against the pimps
who have forced them to work as prostitutes.

In most cases these children do not have appropriate homes to return to, and the only relative who is a suitable guardian may live far away from the child’s hometown. For many the only option is an out
of home placement, college dorm, maternity home or mental health program. For those who reach 18 and need additional time to prepare to enter the mainstream society, independent living programs are
recommended; special education programs are advised for those who need extra help with school and alcohol or drug recovery homes are suggested for those with substance abuse problems.

Children of the Night is in demand to assist other agencies across the country and around the world to develop similar programs.

www.childrenofthenight.org

Please note: Up to 10% of the revenue from Knuckle Supper will be donated to Children of the Night.

"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals."
George Orwell

I. Merchants

Every once in a while things went horribly wrong.

“Dez, get her in the fucking bathroom, you asshole!” I screamed, subduing the pimp twat by wrapping him across the neck with a crowbar. Snot from his jug-head splashed all over the hardwood floor.

The dogs went into frenzy in the backyard.

“And tell the dogs to shut up,” I added.

Dez ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get it out of his face. I always wished he’d cut that shit. While licking gel off his index finger, he whispered, “What the hell, bro?”

The pimp squirmed around. He was still alive. Our little blood theater wasn’t a wrap… yet. He made a run for the door but I tripped him up by chucking the crowbar at his legs. He made a nose-dive onto the floor. Unfortunately, I only managed to bone-out one of his legs.

I looked at Dez who was restraining the little girl. She wasn’t shaking. I think she was just shocked. She probably figured we were going to rape her. “Just get her in the bathroom, dumbass. She’s fucking
twelve.”

Dez shot me a salute, opened the bathroom door and shoved the girl inside. He bolted it from the outside.

“You can be a real pussy sometimes, RJ,” he said.

You’d think that more junkies found it strange that our bathroom had not one, but three deadbolts that locked from the outside. Then again, I took some mean smashes. My diet didn’t exactly consist of
low-fat chicken breasts, stir-fried lightly with organic veggies. That being said, I wouldn’t envy anyone locked up with me in close quarters.

Without acknowledging that once I got high I was going to beat the shit out of Dez, I proceeded to the pimp. Between brushing the blood from his nose out of his mouth, he crawled up our front door,
trying to get at the locks that prevented him from establishing contact with the outside world. His yellowed, chipped nails dug into the wood like he was holding onto the side of Mt. Everest without a rope, a
carabineer or a spotter. Trembling, trying to blow his own liquid soul out of his eyes, he got halfway up the door. His compounded left leg dangled sideways, more hindrance at this point than a method of
propping up the last breath left in his zigzagging body. He felt around the first lock and dropped a little bit.

I ripped off a stainless steel security chain from around my neck.

“Looking for these?” I unhooked the clasp on the homemade necklace and let it unravel to my waist, revealing the three keys on the end. The pimp looked at me stunned. It was one of those moments when
someone realizes that they’re fucked. Dez ran from the bathroom and snatched the key and chain out of my hand. He was always so reliant on weapons.

The pimp cried as his head rested on the door, “Please, bro, don’t kill me. I’m nobody.” He slid down to where his ascension began, defeated. They were always defeated in the end.

Dez walked over to him. “You are nobody bitch and now you’re gonna get me high for the rest of the night.”

I grabbed Dez on the shoulder. “Don’t kill him, idiot. You know that’s not what we want.”

He shrugged off my hand and proceeded toward the bitch-beater who was crying against his last hope to see his family, his friends and his hookers.

“Wait a minute,” the pimp whimpered. “I know who you are.” He braced himself up slightly by planting his palms onto the floor. “What are you? BBP? Sangre? Battlesnakes?” His words stumbled as he pleaded. “I… I… I can help you.”

Dez continued his trek. “Wrong, motherfucker. Do I look like a Beverly Hills shithead to you? Do I look like a Mexican? Am I a fucking Rasta? We’re Knucklers.” He stood over the trapped rat and kicked at his almost emancipated leg. The pimp slid backward on his mitts. Then, without even hesitating, my snaky friend began thumping the chain down on his head.

“Stop, Dez.” In all reality, I didn’t care less if this piece of shit was mortally injured, but he had to be alive. We both knew that even a douche like this guy wasn’t any good to us “quiet.” I nabbed Dez’s wrist before the chain collided with his skull for the fifth time. “Enough with the weapons. Don’t be a psycho. Do you want to get high or not?” I ripped the chain out of his hand, tossed it into the dining room
and added, “I get first dibs.”

He flicked a blood droplet off his girly eyelashes. “You always get first dibs.”

The pimp grabbed onto his leg as he ran his tongue across this toothless gums. I walked back toward the coffee table, grabbed two loaded syringes and wiped off all the asshole goop that had been pitched around the room. I put one in my front pocket. I continued.

“Hold him. I can still see his chest moving.” I looked at the bathroom door. Not a sound. Either the pre-teen girl behind it was scared, knowing she was next, or she didn’t care whether or not we killed the
asshole that dropkicked her down Sunset Boulevard nightly.

Dez got behind the pimp, erecting his forearm toward me with the wrist turned upright. “Why did we have to go through all that? We should have just killed both of them at the same time. She’s a junkie,
RJ.”

“Just hold him still,” I commanded. “You know there isn’t another way to do this. You wanna end up back on Skid Row eating rats?” I bent down on one knee and grabbed the pimp about halfway up his forearm. I handed Dez the needle. He grabbed it. His hand was jittery.

I inhaled the warmth of human in the room. “Don’t fuck this up for me, dude,” I insisted. “After all that, you’d think you could remain steady. Shit, you act like this is the first time something went wrong.
Remember when that one homeless guy started squirting shit and piss all over the house. This is nothin’.”

“Me?” he squealed and he flippantly pushed the air out of the syringe and flicked at the tube. He put the pimp in a headlock. “I knew this was going to be more of a problem than it was worth. You and
these fucking cattle, RJ. Like they give two jogs about you,” he shuffled his hand with the syringe, emulating jerking off.

I was pretty sure that guy wasn’t going anywhere. You know; we have superhuman strength and all that. Brown blood bubbled out of the pimp’s mouth. He tried to chew on his lip, but he came up with nothing but gums and crust. The chain sprayed his teeth all over the carpet like we were playing fifty-two pick up in a dentist’s office.

My grip tightened on the forearm. I felt the heartbeat and an orgasmic flush swept through my body. “Whatever. Spike this asshole.” I grabbed onto the pimp’s middle finger, pushing the other fingers down and out of the way. “You really need to get that hair out of your eyes, Dez,” I laughed and made a weepy emo face. “What? Are you a fifteen year-old kid, angry because his pussy hurts?”

He laughed a little and tapped at the needle a second time with the hand that was locked around the pimp’s neck. “Someday, you’re gonna thank me for always being here. You could never do this alone.”
I Held up the pimp’s middle finger. “Fuck you. Get it done. One… two… dunk that doughnut!”

Laughing, Dez sunk the needle into the pimp’s wrist. As quickly as I noticed all the heroin was in his blood, I cranked the elbow quickly to the left and then to the right. Knowing the arm was loose by feeling
the already-brittle bone give, I commanded, “Pull the plug!” Without hesitation Dez pulled the spike from the wrist and I unlocked the forearm from the pimp’s body and held it vertically. I quickly flipped
it over and snapped off the “fuck you” finger directly at the knuckle.

Then, I sucked on it like a crazy straw in a Slurpee. As I drank the nectar, I scuttled across the floor, back to the coffee table. I searched around with one eye and my hand and grabbed a powdery new latex glove. I stretched out the glove with my hand and capped the end of the severed arm.

“Hurry up, RJ, this grit is going into shock and losing a lot of blood. If his heart stops, it’s your ass.” Both Dez’s arms were now taming the squirming body of the pimp.

Knowing time was running out, I kicked over a glass bong and then inched the bong stand toward me with my right foot.

“Hurry, RJ!” Dez screamed.

Finally, I spit the knuckle out of my mouth, placed the arm in the bong holder and dragged my rapidly fading ass across the floor. Dez laid the body down on its back. I grabbed the already trashed arm,
cranked it toward the sternum and sat on the heart. Dez released the chokehold; I bounced up and down on the chest. Trying to prevent more blood from coming out of the appendage I already broke off by
wrapping a towel around the break point, I massaged my leg against his chest, pressing toward the still attached arm. Dez hopped to the other arm and more sloppily than I had, he unlocked it at the forearm.
I nabbed the needle from my front pocket, forced out the air and tapped at it as I tried to hold in blood from the other arm.

“Hold him still,” I advised Dez. I took the needle, dropped it into a vein on the wrist and cracked off the knuckle with his teeth. As he started sucking away, I moved over to the top of the armless pimp,
hugged his neck like a strangler without the element of surprise and with one turn to the right and one turn to the left, I removed his head from what was still remaining of his torso. The chest plate sucked in
one last time and gassed out from his five open holes. He pissed and shit himself.

Dez managed to make it over to the coffee table to get his latex cap. I tossed the head aside and went back toward the bong display.

“That’s a mess,” Dez joked. His eyes rolled back and forth.

I picked up my arm and held it up for cheers. He just fell backward on a beanbag chair. “Fuck you then,” I said, turning the arm up to my mouth. “I’ll call the bottom feeder to come clean this up.”

The dope began flowing with the blood of the pimp through the dust inside me. It felt nice, warm, comforting. My head nodded back and forth and bobbed side-to-side. It was a feeling I felt so comforted
by because it was the only thing I ever knew how to feel. Heroin meant more to me than my body, my face, my words and my brain. It was the only.

Dez and I are in a pack called The Knucklers. Yeah, I suppose we’re vampires but more importantly, we’re junkies and gangster motherfuckers.

“RJ?”

“Yeah?”

“What are we going to do about the girl in the bathroom?”

“Good question, Dez.”

Continue to Read PDF