Body Count

by mike Evans

  Forsyth checked the doors one last time as always and put chairs in place under the door handles once the boy went to sleep. There was no reason messing the young child’s mind up if he didn’t have to. There was so much potential in this boy who was fortunate to have the financial backing and love of his father. When he had the room as secure as possible he went to his bed. The more time that Forsyth spent with that kid the more he didn’t care that he wasn’t drinking himself to sleep on a regular basis. Forsyth was starting to wonder if having Mikey around was actually going to be good thing for him, as long as he didn’t get killed in the middle of trying his best to protect him when the shit hit the fan.

  *****

  Midnight Paris

  Mikey slowly walked across the plush carpeted room to Forsyth’s adjoining suite. He stood there for a moment, trying to be patient but it lasted less than a minute. When Forsyth didn’t respond, he pushed the old man on the shoulder. When he did not respond from that, Mikey tried again and punched him as hard as he could in the shoulder. Forsyth jumped up, pulling the pistol out from under the pillow and looking around wild eyed. When he saw nothing, he took a deep breath, falling back to the bed. A small voice said, “Why do you have a gun Mr. Forsyth?”

  Forsyth rolled onto his side and saw Mikey lying flat on the floor, the blanket in hand that he had adopted as his and his only. Forsyth said, “I just want to make sure that you are safe kid. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare the hell out of you. What do you need, are you ok?”

  Mikey nodded slowly. “Uh, I think so, but I just wanted to see if I could sleep with you. There are some shadows in my room, I'm pretty sure that they are monsters that want to eat me.”

  Forsyth was rubbing his face and made the pistol disappear back beneath his pillow. “Mikey, you want me to go check it out for you? I can take the gun and shoot them if you want.”

  Mikey jumped to his feet. Looking for the gun while clenching Forsyth’s wrist he fearfully exclaimed, “No, don’t go in there! They aren’t nice and they are everywhere. Some of them are as tall as the ceiling. I don’t know how they got in but I don’t want to lose you too. You are all I got right now!”

  The boy actually had tears in his eyes. Forsyth rubbed Mikey’s head and said, “You aren't getting rid of me for nothing kid. I’m around as long as you or your dad need me. You don’t know just how safe you are buddy.”

  Forsyth threw the blankets back in invitation. Mikey, who didn’t need to be asked twice, scrambled onto the bed, crawling across Forsyth to the other side of the bed where he could relax and forget about those things that go bump in the night. When Mikey was relaxed and comfortable again, he curled up into a little ball while holding the blanket by his nose. Once his breathing became slow and steady, Forsyth was confident that he was out for the count.

  Forsyth slowly started to get his own breath back and feeling better. He knew that if he’d accidentally shot the boy in the head there would be no forgiving himself, ever. The second shot fired would have been through his own skull. The grief for hurting someone so young and innocent, along with having Gabriel coming for him because of what he’d done would be horrific, and life off of the earth would be easier for him. Forsyth moved the pistol back down to his side making sure the safety was engaged. He didn’t figure Mikey dumb enough to touch it but knew there was little that would surprise him if a child did it.

  He lay his head back, hoping to God that he’d be able to catch a few more hours of sleep. The kid wouldn’t be sleeping in because Mikey was an early riser, regardless of how much swimming he did each day. He had nothing better to do and letting the child swim until his fingers looked like they had turned into prunes was not something that broke his heart. Forsyth figured that when he finally found out about his mother, there would at least be a short time that the boy would be able to remember eating like a king and being spoiled. He let his thoughts keep him busy until sleep eventually caught him.

  It felt only as if he’d been sleeping for two minutes but when he looked at the clock it’d been three hours. When it registered what actually woke him up, he jumped, pulled the pistol out and put the safety to the off position while also making sure that he was chambered. This startled Mikey, making him jump violently in bed. The terrified eyes of the boy did little to help Forsyth remain calm. Mikey pulled on his sleeve. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

  Forsyth said, “I want you to go hide in the bathroom for me and lock the door. I don’t want you to open it until I knock four times, do you understand me? You lay down in the bathtub please, ok? You know how many four is right?”

  Mikey nodded slowly and held up four fingers and asked again, “What are you going to do? What’s wrong?”

  Forsyth quickly got out of bed, scooped Mikey up and ushered him to the bathroom. “I’m taking care of the monsters. But you be ready if there are too many of them, and we decide that we need to get out of here and try and find us a nice new hotel.”

  Mikey sat in the tub, looking up at him. It made the little guy look even smaller, his eyes got big and he asked, “You’re going to go after the monsters?”

  Forsyth nodded. “Yeah kid, don’t worry about Forsyth. I promise you that I've been through all kinds of sh….stuff.”

  Mikey gave him a thumbs up and Forsyth hit the click on the door, hoping it wasn’t your standard piece of shit lock. If it didn’t go the way that he wanted it to, he hoped that the Paris officials would find the boy and care for him until time that Gabriel made his way here. He knew that many more would die than just him if the boy was taken by these men or officials because there’d be nothing that would stop him from going for Mikey, and after only a few days it wasn’t something which surprised him at all.

  Mikey whispered, “Be careful with the monsters Uncle Forsyth.”

  Forsyth shot Mikey a wink, closed the door slowly and made his way towards the noise that was coming from Mikey’s adjoining room. He listened for voices but the people who had entered the room were smart enough to be quiet as there was no noise coming from the room. There was not even a whisper making its way across. Forsyth looked into the room and saw four men. The first walked straight towards Mikey’s bed, firing three shots into his pillow. Feathers exploded from it then swayed back and forth gently as they made their way back to the ground. Forsyth waited until the man bent down to move the covers, then entered the room, firing off two shots into the back of the man’s head. He figured that with the long pillows Mikey had in the bed, the attackers assumed the room was his. He thought all the better reason to put these men out of their misery and ask questions later.

  The first of the four collapsed onto the bed, the feathers that landed on his back turned red. Forsyth never stopped moving, knowing he was at a complete disadvantage and unlike the men, he only had so many bullets with no additional magazines filled with rounds to replace them with. The second man turned around, seeing Forsyth but shocked by his friend being taken down. He yelled, “We just want the boy, no one has to be hurt here!”

  Forsyth lowered the gun saying, “Oh well if that is all, then that sounds good.”

  The other three men started to lower their guns then Forsyth suddenly brought his back up, taking a few steps closer and making sure he was not going to miss and waste any of the precious bullets. He squeezed off two shots at the second man, one in his chest and a finishing shot to his skull. The guy flew backwards, flipping over the couch and disappearing. By the time the third man started to raise his gun, Forsyth was already taking aim. His shot was wasted as the fourth sent a bullet for Forsyth. After the man fired, Forsyth gripped the side of his arm, feeling as if a hot fire poker had gone across it. When he brought his now bloody palm away he was quite sure that it had been a bullet that had struck him.

  The third man started to gain confidence as Forsyth made his way towards him. Seeing the wound, and for some reason thinking that, plus increased numbers on their side, would be enough to beat a man that had something he was willing to die to pro
tect. Forsyth fired off a shot, not keeping his gun hand very steady as the blood dripped down his arm collecting around his hand. His first shot hit the man in the leg. The man leapt over the side of the couch, Forsyth followed across the back, firing off the rest of the magazine and momentarily forgetting about the fourth man who still needed to be take out.

  The man yelled for him to stop but that was the last thing that Forsyth was going to do. He looked down at the empty chamber staring back at him and grabbed the large crystal lamp on the side of the couch, ripping it up and out of the socket and hurling it at the man. When the man ducked, Forsyth leapt, landing his giant frame on the man. His large hands made the pistol he’d been using look tiny. The man grunted when Forsyth landed on him. Forsyth flipped the pistol over using the butt like a hammer and did not stop beating the man until there was nothing recognizable about his face. The stranger never stopped screaming in pain during the beating but when he finally did, Forsyth figured that there was a good chance that he only stopped because he had suffocated on his own blood or his skull crushed through his brain.

  When Forsyth let go of the pistol he could not tell where his blood and the man’s blood separated. He pushed up, stumbled to the bathroom that was Mikey’s. He ripped a towel off of the wall and put it around his bicep, tying it off and stopping the bleeding the best that he could. Forsyth wasted no time making anything look pretty. He double checked that he had his money and Mikey’s belongings then he ran to the adjoining suite’s bathroom door, slamming into it and forgetting that it was locked. He knocked quickly four times as previously agreed upon, after what felt like an hour Mikey unclicked the lock and opened the door. He poked his head out slowly and asked, “Did you get the monsters Uncle Forsyth? There must have been a lot of them, huh?”

  Forsyth tried to smile but his arm was throbbing. When they went out through Mikey’s room, Forsyth ran around quickly collecting weapons just in case and then scooped the boy up. As he went to open the door, a deep voice echoed through, “Hey, you guys ok in there? Did you take care of them? We need to go people are staring down here.”

  Forsyth waited a second, not opening the door and cupping Mikey’s mouth. The boy started to squirm and freak out deservingly so at the sight of all the blood. Forsyth used the best accent that he could and said, “Help, we need help get in here!”

  The man said nothing; he only gripped the handle and pushed his way in, splintering the door frame and using his massive size to push it off of the hinges. Forsyth placed Mikey down on the ground and to the side, safe and sound. The man had entered with his gun up, moving quickly Forsyth brought down his gun one more time into the back of the man’s neck. When he did not pass out, Forsyth brought down a second strike into the man’s mouth knocking most of his teeth out. Blood gushed and came out each side of his mouth covering him. Tears filled the man’s eyes and Mikey screamed behind him. Forsyth reached to grip the boy, not thinking straight or how to care for the threat that was directly in front of him. Forsyth brought up a very large foot then bringing it down hard and fast into the man’s nose using every pound that he had available to crack into his face. The man did not give any further problems after this and lay his head back resting and unable to keep awake, the pain had been too much to deal with for him. His nose and jaw were sitting at impossible angles and he was sure that he had broken both of them in the kick.

  Forsyth picked up a screaming Mikey giving him a kiss on the top of his head whispering how everything was going to be ok. Forsyth slid one pistol that he had collected into his pocket and placed another down inside the rear loop of his pants. When he looked out into the hallway there were only sleepy hotel guests staring back at him. Forsyth screamed, “There’s terrorists, someone call the police let them know what is happening, do it now!”

  The men and women disappeared back into their rooms slamming their doors shut. The click of locks and doors being slammed echoed down the hallway. Forsyth punched the elevator button to go downstairs to the lobby. He knew that there was going to be plenty of people coming to the hotel soon and that the two of them needed to get out of here and he needed to try and find someone that would be able to help him with his arm. Mikey squeezed onto him and by the time they got to the lobby, Mikey’s tears had soaked through his shirt and he was trying to squeeze him harder than the boy had strength to do. He figured there was a hell of a chance that the kid was going to need to talk to someone depending on how much of his mother he had in him. He knew that his dad surely would not have been affected.

  The doors to the lobby parted and security was rushing past him. He was thankful that he had a dark, long sleeve shirt on that made the blood disappear, other than a trickle that was making it down his arm and into his pants where he was collecting the blood. By the time that he made it to the end of the lobby he had passed everyone. The only proof that the two of them had ever been there in the first place was going to be the bloody size twelve prints that his feet were leaving behind. EMT’s were rushing past them as they exited into the cool fall night. Forsyth watched as the men disappeared, leaving no one around the perimeter of the hotel yet because they had arrived on the scene within a few minutes of them exiting which was perfectly fine with him. Forsyth set Mikey on the street and jumped into the ambulance grabbing what looked like a tackle box that he knew was their go kits filled with everything he should need for a slight wound. Mikey said, “Those weren’t monsters, what are you doing? Where are we going?”

  Forsyth winced as he jumped back down to the ground. He picked up Mikey again while carrying his new goodies with his bad arm. They cut through a few alleys putting distance between them and the hotel by getting a few streets away. By the time he could just barely hear the ambulance and police in the distance he was starting to realize that sitting down in the seat of a car was going to be very useful for him. He waved down a taxi, thanking God when it stopped. Mikey climbed in, laying down and falling asleep almost instantly in the rear seat. Forsyth said “I need a hotel please.”

  The cabbie said, “Damn American’s don’t ever know the fucking language, only country in the world who refuses to try and learn another language besides their own.”

  Forsyth tapped the man on the shoulder handing him three one hundred dollar bills. The man said, “I don’t need this much, do you not know the conversion rate?”

  Forsyth said, “You might hate our ethics and ability to not learn the language, but I know damn well that you love your ass some money. Take me to a hotel, somewhere that I can still get checked into in the middle of the night.”

  The cabbie said, “Well there is a hotel that is only a few blocks from here back from the way we came. You should have said where you wanted to go.”

  Forsyth said, “That place has nothing but police and ambulances in front of it, I think that I would like to get to the other side of the city. We’ve been sitting here for a while. Please take us somewhere clean and that has a pool.”

  “Oh clean and a pool, well ok we can do that for the Americans.”

  Forsyth sat back. He could pay the man a million dollars and he’d still find a reason to be a complete asshole. When they stopped at the front of the new hotel he picked up Mikey, cradling him in his arms, and went into the hotel saying nothing to man driving. He’d been paid more than well enough to do a simple deed and still was an asshole. He thought of other times and other places in which he would have happily put a bullet in the back of the man’s head. Forsyth would not feel guilty for doing what he needed to so that he could keep the kid safe. But he knew that this would have just been something that would have made him personally happy and not had anything to do with the job at hand. He left the door open to the taxi and heard another slur of cursing at them that he ignored. When Forsyth entered the hotel, he went straight back to the restroom in the lobby. He set Mikey down on the couch in there, stripped his shirt off to check out his arm and found that it was not nearly as bad as it had felt. He cleaned and disinfected it, and when tha
t was done, put gauze and medical tape around it while flexing his bicep as much as he could to make sure that he would still have some range of motion.

  He put back on his shirt and scooped up Mikey. Then, pulling a fake license out of his pocket he folded it in a wad of money knowing they were going to request it. He carried Mikey to the front desk and found a young and extremely bored looking worker sitting at the registration desk. The look on the kid’s face screamed that the man holding the sleeping child was not important enough to waste his time on. Forsyth slid his license across the counter along with a stack of hundreds. The hotel employee said, “We are not open for another two hours to receive guests.” He put a newspaper up distancing himself from Forsyth.

  Forsyth said, “We don’t have anywhere which we can go to sir. You would be doing us a wonderful favor if you would please let me in.”

  The man did not lower the paper as he said, “I’m sorry but I just couldn’t break hotel rules.”

  Forsyth asked, “In American can you tell me what this hotel costs per night?”

  The man replied, “It is two hundred and fifty dollars. Let me please answer first that we do not take coupons, or silly American deal booking websites. We have been around longer than all of those places and we will be around for many years after it to come.”

  Forsyth slid ten one hundred dollar bills across the counter and said, “Half is for you, half is for the hotel. I’ll only be here for a few days. For just checking me in you can keep this money which I'm sure is about what you make working your ass off for an entire week.”

  The man still keeping the paper up in front of him said, “Let me see what I can do in a few hours.”

  Forsyth set the first aid kit down, covering it with a coat and laid Mikey down on the lobby couch. Forsyth walked back up to the man, forcefully grabbed the paper and pushing it down to the desk. The man could not have looked more annoyed about the fact that the cocky American dared to touch his property no matter how unimportant it might really be. When the man went to say something, Forsyth interrupted by reaching across quickly and with great strength gripped the man by his shirt collar and lifted him up a few inches so that they were face to face, “If you don’t get me a room you greedy little bastard, I’m going to give you the entire thousand dollars and you are going to have to spend it on a hospital stay. Now do you have any questions, any at all?”