Velvet Decoy
An Experimental Fiction/Hybrid Narrative by Chad Schomber
FADE IN:
EXT. INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT – NIGHT
Wet streets under sodium light. Steam off the gutters.
A beat-up gray sedan tears past warehouses, engine coughing smoke.
INT. SEDAN – MOVING – NIGHT
NATE behind the wheel, jaw locked.
RAY riding shotgun, blood on his collar, chain-smoking like it’s oxygen.
VINCE in the back seat, shaking his leg, eyes wild.
Silence. Heavy. Everybody hearing the echo of gunfire.
VINCE
They were fucking waiting for us. No way that was random.
RAY
Shut up.
VINCE
How’d they even know? Two-fifteen, that exact dock—
RAY
I said shut the fuck up.
NATE
Both of you. I’m driving. You wanna die, keep yappin’.
Nate cuts a corner too fast. Tires scream, hubcap rattles loose.
RAY
That wasn’t no bust, man. That was a goddamn setup.
VINCE
Yeah? You think I set it up? That what you’re saying?
RAY
Didn’t say your name.
VINCE
You didn’t have to, I can hear it in your tone.
NATE
Jesus Christ— both of you shut the fuck up.
He blows a red. The glove box pops open; a 9mm drops out, hits Ray’s knee.
He checks the mag, racks it once, keeps it on his thigh.
VINCE
Anybody behind us?
NATE
Not yet. Don’t mean they ain’t coming.
RAY
That tall bastard with the ponytail— he wasn’t supposed to be there.
Looked right at me, like he knew.
VINCE
Everyone looked like they fucking knew once the shooting started.
Ray twists around in his seat, points his cigarette.
RAY
You think this is funny? You think you’re cute?
VINCE
I think you’re leaking fear all over the car and it stinks.
They glare. Two beats. Nate snaps.
NATE
We gotta dump this heap. Bridges close in ten.
RAY
We can’t ditch it till we know where the hell we’re going.
NATE
Then figure it out. I’m not playing taxi till sunrise.
VINCE
We could hit Glendale. My cousin’s got—
NATE
Fuck Glendale. We need dark and empty. Rail yard, warehouse, I don’t care.
Ray exhales smoke at the windshield.
RAY
That bag had fifty grand in it, man. FIFTY. You realize that?
NATE
We don’t even know if the bag made it out.
Silence. Tense as wire.
VINCE
What do you mean, made it?
Nate doesn’t answer right away. Sees it in his head — flashes of muzzle light, forklift sparks, the bag sliding off the pallet.
NATE
I don’t think it got in the car.
VINCE
Bullshit. You had it.
NATE
No. You had it.
VINCE
The fuck I did. Ray had it.
Ray’s eyes go cold.
RAY
Say that again.
VINCE
You were the last one out, man. You said, I got it, let’s go.
RAY
Yeah, well… I thought I did. Must’ve dropped it.
VINCE
You dropped fifty fucking grand?
NATE
Enough!
He SLAMS the brakes. The sedan fishtails to a stop under a flickering streetlight.
Silence. Just the engine ticking down.
NATE
We go back, we’re dead. Whoever set that up’s still there or waiting for us to be stupid.
We move forward. Got it?
RAY
Fifty grand gone.
NATE
Better the money than our faces on a wall in the morgue.
VINCE
Whole thing’s fucked. We’re burnt.
NATE
Maybe. But I wanna know how they knew.
Nate kills the engine. The dark swallows them.
RAY
You don’t think maybe the guy with the truck—
NATE
No. He’s hired muscle. Somebody higher up fed them the time.
VINCE
So you’re saying somebody on our side.
NATE
I’m saying— we keep talking like this, I’ll start believing it.
They freeze. Three men breathing hard in the dark.
Far off — SIRENS wail. Getting closer.
Nate turns the key. The motor coughs back to life.
NATE
Next bridge’s five minutes out. We miss it, we’re boxed in.
VINCE
And if we make it?
NATE
Then we start over.
The car rolls into the fog, headlights cutting a thin path.
RAY
We still gotta find that bag.
NATE
We will.
He doesn’t believe it.
EXT. INDUSTRIAL ROAD – NIGHT
The sedan’s taillights disappear into the mist.
Two miles back, another pair of headlights turns onto the same street—
slow, steady, following.
FADE OUT.