“You know what I’m going to do for you?” Miguel asks, slamming the beer bottle down on the small wooden table as he steps over to where Jose is lying on the floor in anguish. “I’m going to let you live… Surprised? Let me explain. Someone recently came to me with a story about a woman who threatened to hurt my family if I don’t stop hurting her people… Now, we can’t do business… cannot be number one without violence; it is just our way of life… But I don’t need to be the face of that violence. So let me explain your new position with the cartel. You will become el jefe, and we will let everyone know that you are responsible for our group. When a man’s wife is raped, he will know that Jose was responsible. When a child’s mother is run over during a smuggling run, they will know that Jose was responsible. When a man is beaten to death and left to be eaten alive by the rats, then will know that… Jose was in charge!”
Miguel looks on with pride, realizing that a death sentence would be like stroking Jose’s neck with a feather compared to making him responsible for over 10,000 murders a year.
“Smile, Jose, you are the new face of the cartel.” Miguel evokes with a grin of disturbed pleasure. “I said SMILE!”
Despite his agony, nausea, and the feeling as though he will pass out from the pain, Jose manages to weakly smile from the floor toward his boss. Miguel breaks out into a storm of belly laughter, clapping his hands together slowly three times.
A lightning bolt hits the grounds of the estate as if it were a javelin cast down by monstrous, Olympic Athlete. Miguel shudders and cowers a bit as the thunder creaks its way through the earth, shattering the air with mighty electric force. He holds his breath, waiting for the earth to stop shaking and give him peace again, but the earth does not stop shaking. The symphony of tectonic grinding beneath the home goes far beyond lightning strikes, causing glasses to fall off the bar, and a power outage at the estate. Miguel’s heart is now pumping vigorously as the result of a childhood phobia; lightning and thunder have always plagued him with anxiety. Underneath the estate, the earth shifts in a very deliberate manner, a slow, churning movement, pushing upward from the furious interior beneath the foundation.
The priestess steps out of the jungle wearing a black, ceremonial robe that descends all the way to her feet. Large drops of rain have soaked into the fabric, showing off her powerful body and ample breasts. She fixes her green eyes on the outer wall of The Horatio Estate, walking with conviction toward the fifteen-foot concrete structure. Her face is painted white with waterproof clay, and her eyes are coated with deep black circles of grease. This ghastly display is softened a bit by her lips that are painted red with ten black vertical stitches drawn on them. There are two dark spots on her nose, resembling the holes leftover on a skull where the skin is missing after the body has died.
The priestess smiles with universal confidence under her mask of death when she approaches the outer wall. She holds out her right hand with the palm hovering just inches from the face of the thick concrete. Her strength is felt and acknowledged by the earth, commanding the concrete to erode; it blows away with the ferocious winds of the storm and leaves a three-foot gap in the wall. She enters the grounds like a deathly monarch, enjoying the rain on her face, but maintaining a deified stare. After walking ten feet, the priestess puts her hand out toward the second wall, and again, the concrete erodes away in a three-foot section as if having been struck by the blast wave of a nuclear weapon.
When she steps through the opening in the concrete, her green eyes focus on the rounded balcony just twenty feet above her head. The priestess looks to her left and sees a trio of Rottweilers watching her with dignified affection from their small shelter near the home. All three dogs recognize her as their mother, and while they yearn for her embrace, they know that she is just as vicious in nature as any other wild animal.
From the watchtower, the eldest guard rubs his eyes as he looks out at the grounds. A woman in a black robe is standing at the base of a hill that has recently appeared from out of the earth. The new formation of sand and rock leads from the grounds up to the nursery; twenty feet from the yard… Or what was twenty feet off the ground last time he looked. The man shakes his head from side-to-side in disbelief, trying to logically explain how a mountain of earth grew out of the ground from the inner wall to the nursery. He squeezes his eyes tight in confusion as he sees the woman climbing the mound of freshly formed earth toward the estate. The old cartel guard recalls the tremors from a few moments ago, and gazes in awe at the large pathway of broken rocks and dirt. It has the fresh appearance of something regurgitated by a mountain.
During her ascent up the mound of earth and rock, the water feels good running under her bare feet. The priestess senses movement to her left, and looks up at the watchtower where men are pointing at her and screaming. She closes her eyes, tightening her hands into fists as she points them toward the earth.
Beneath the watchtower, the foundation shifts violently upward, and the flimsy structure shudders under the pressure, swaying slightly in the wind. All three men at the top are thrown to the floor or against their control panels as the power goes out in the seventy-five-foot structure. The earth bucks once again, and the tower is stripped from its foundation, tearing in half as the top portion falls over the wall, with the security office crashing hard into the jungle outside of the grounds. The two guards who were sleeping in their cots climb out from the bottom half of the tower with minor injuries. They stop in the middle of the yard, looking up at the new mound of earth in wonder, and staring at the priestess with confused expressions.
The cold jungle rain pounds deftly in sloppy drips of various sizes, landing heavily on the two guards that just awoke. They shiver and gaze at the ferocious eyes of the otherworldly being. She glares at them from behind her death mask, displaying a formidable contempt for the two men; a lamentation of their service to the cartel.
After a few seconds of staring the men down, the priestess continues her climb up the mound of freshly formed earth toward the nursery. As they watch the cryptic, beautiful creature from the grounds, the two men hear a slight snarl rising up over the sound of the rain. They look down to see the Rottweilers approaching them from the front; teeth bared, and faces set with ominous gazes, their terrible, thin jaws ready to strike.
When the priestess reaches the top of the earth mound she hears the final screams of the guards from the yard below. Her protective children waste no time in crushing their throats with eager mouths, gnawing and clawing the men to darkness.
The nursery is impressive under the majesty of the bleak, rainy sky. It is a rotunda of glass and concrete with a cathedral ceiling that rises over thirty feet from the floor. There is a decorative cement railing going around the outside edges of the structure, and a six-foot wide balcony that nearly makes a complete circle around the massive room.
The priestess closes her fists in a snap, watching a four-foot section of the cement railing explode into dust, crushed by the will of the earth. She steps forward onto the balcony, her black robe fully drenched by the storm. As she moves toward the cylinder of glass and concrete that makes up the nursery, her small feet leave muddy footprints on the balcony. Bearing a dutiful sneer, she reaches out with both hands pushing her fingertips into the glass with her palms outward. The ten-foot section of thick glass begins to respond, feeling the hands of the priestess, the silica inside moves with her will, bending open in a three-foot section as she spreads her hands apart. The mysterious creature steps forward as the glass bends open around her body, creating a jagged hole in the middle of the large window with dozens of sharp spires pointing inward at the nursery.
From the center of the nursery a baby boy begins to cry, sensing that the room is quickly becoming colder, and an awful mixture of noise has entered his once peaceful shelter. The priestess steps toward the small, gray crib, her body and hair dripping rainwater all over the white, marble floor as she continues to leave a path of muddy footprints.
When she reache
s the crib, her electric green eyes peer down at the child with malice, the dark, black grease that surrounds them giving of an unusual sheen, accentuated by droplets of fresh water. The priestess breathes deeply holding her hands up with fingers outstretched as if to claw the sky. High above the estate, the clouds respond to her energy by sending a powerful pulse of lightning down onto the roof of the home. When the lightning bolt strikes the roof, it breaks several Spanish tiles and causes the glass baby bottles to rattle on a wooden table near the door.
The child begins to scream, crying louder as he is terrified of the powerful sound. She looks down at the small, brown-skinned baby, staring with jealous hatred and a yearning from days long in the past. The priestess closes her eyes, remembering the horrible pain that brought her to this place. She claws fiercely toward the ceiling like a tigress assaulting the air, and again the clouds respond with another burst of ear-shattering energy. This lightning bolt pounds the ceiling of the nursery harder; an electric missile that smashes through more Spanish tiles causing the roof to crumble somewhat.
As the tiny pieces of roof bounce on the white marble near her bare feet the priestess indulges a wicked smile. She reaches down and grabs the baby by the chest with one hand. The child is feeble in her strong grip, almost naked save for a white cloth diaper. Her mighty right hand holds the baby upward to the heavens as she walks toward the opening in the glass, and back out into the storm.
Miguel is rushing through the darkness, terrified by the sound of lightning hitting the nursery. He moves sluggishly with his cumbersome black, cowboy boots, wishing he had worn his running shoes instead. As he moves swiftly through the darkness in the halls of the second floor, his right knee catches the face of a large cement statue. He immediately stops and grips his kneecap in pain, glaring at the concrete tiger for being in his way.
After taking a quick moment to recover, he stands up straight, and limps the remaining few feet to the doors of the nursery. When he reaches the solid, walnut-stained doors, his right hand grips the pearl handle and Miguel emerges from the hallway into the large room. His hands and face immediately detect cooler air in the baby’s room, and he gazes in shock at the formation of bent glass that opens into a large hole through a window at the front of the nursery. The jagged hole is just a bit wider than a person, allowing the rain to spatter the floor somewhat.
Miguel looks into the empty crib with a panicked expression, patting the fabric hard in disbelief. He shuffles across the white marble hastily, not caring about the pain in his knee. The adrenaline and rage carry him through the large hole in the glass to a broken section of the balcony railing. His eyes open wide with amazement as he spies the newly-formed mound of rock and earth, stretching from the inner wall of the grounds twenty feet below up to the cement balcony beneath his feet.
At the bottom of the mound, the priestess glares at him with disdain, her painted face and intense eyes full of malicious fury. She is holding his son up in the air with her right hand as if just having claimed a prize in a game of chance.
Miguel retrieves the Desert Eagle pistol from the rear of his pants, pointing it at this ghastly new vermin in his yard. He holds it steady for a moment, taking aim at her chest, but realizes that killing her might hurt the baby. His hands begin to shake as the betrayal and pain of this act are like nothing he has ever known before. Miguel heaves his chest, breathing steam like a mad bull, and his adrenaline piques as he sprints forward down the mound of earth, screaming like a fierce warrior protecting his young.
Under the sleek, black cowboy boots, the mud shuffles and slips, and as Miguel tries to stop, his body spins and he falls off the mound to his left. Miguel feels a rush of terror after losing his footing, and he slides a few feet before dropping off the steep side of the large formation. His eyes peer down helplessly at the earth as it draws unmercifully closer. He is off balance when his legs hit the ground and Miguel feels an intense snap in his upper left leg.
The cartel chief screams as he feels a deep burning and breaking all at once. His mind is overloaded with such pain that he bites his tongue without realizing what he has done. Miguel rolls on the ground in agony, giving off a torrent of incessant cries. He turns with a now horrified face to look at his left leg as he sees his femur bone sticking through his blood-soaked pants. The middle-aged man rolls onto his back with his hands balled up into tight fists, shaking like an infant. He looks up at the sky with despair, feeling betrayed by the world as the cold rain dances on his cheeks and forehead.
After his breathing calms down and the pain is reduced by adrenaline, Miguel sits up a bit in the mud, cautious about moving his freshly-broken leg.
“Hernando! Pablo! Jose!” The cartel chief cries out in desperation, hoping that his guards will come to his aid.
Within a few seconds, as if answering his call, a Rottweiler approaches, trotting around the mound of earth to his right, snarling as it gets closer. He looks at the dog with confusion, wondering why it is being aggressive toward its master. Miguel inspects his badly broken leg and decides that the wound must have triggered something in the dog. He searches the saturated grounds desperately for his Desert Eagle, and sees the silver handle sticking up from the mud just a few feet away.
The snarling increases pitch as the dog approaches him with its back arched, head down, and a full set of exposed teeth. Miguel crawls slowly towards his pistol, knowing that this is how the dog behaves before it attacks. As he drags his broken leg two feet forward, the intense pain returns, almost worse than with the fresh break. He grits his teeth, closes his eyes, and continues to crawl forward, pretending that this is just a nightmare.
His Rottweiler is persistent and approaches with a bolder stance, still poised for an attack, growling louder now over the sound of the rain.
“Fuck you!” Miguel shouts as he retrieves the pistol from the mud, points it at the dog’s head, and pulls the trigger.
With his eyes closed tight, he waits for the blast of a round firing, but all he feels is a wet click as the firing pin doesn’t strike hard enough to ignite the gunpowder. Miguel’s heart continues to throb as the dog closes in on his face. His hands shake a bit as he opens the chamber and hits the side of the gun on a rock to get the water and mud out of the barrel. He remains on his right side, keeping his neck away from the dog, but the Rottweiler lunges and bites his left arm, tearing through the skin like an unforgiving wild beast. Miguel begins to scream, but quickly regains his senses, turning over a bit, he swings the Desert Eagle at the dog’s skull. The first blow enrages the dog enough to shake its head from side-to-side. This causes a painful tearing of muscles and skin that is too much, and Miguel repeatedly batters the dog with the side of the pistol until it lets go of his arm.
He holds his wounded left arm up in the air, feeling sick at the hot pain traveling through his veins and flesh. His left leg is stinging horribly from all the movement and he is breathing visible steam in the extremely cold rain. Miguel looks at the muddy ground with reinforced despair as the other two Rottweilers trot around the base of the earthen mound in his direction.
“Not you, Carlos.” Miguel states with sad eyes, speaking to the largest and oldest of the three dogs as it approaches. “I raised you myself. We’ve been together for years…”
The large dog responds to his plea with a short snarl, and jogs around his legs in a half-circle to approach him from behind. After the largest dog takes a position behind him, the other Rottweilers approach slowly from the front. Miguel doesn’t appear intimidated on the surface, but his mind is filled with doubt, terror, and helplessness. He quickly pulls back on the action of his Desert Eagle, ejecting a dirty round and replacing it with a clean bullet.
These panicked movements cause both dogs to attack him from the front, and Miguel fires his pistol at the smaller dog that bit his arm. The Desert Eagle explodes with energy, sending a bullet through the dog’s skull and taking it down with tremendous stopping power. The second dog snaps at his face and he lunges backw
ard on the ground, laying flat on his back to get more distance as he points the pistol at the dog’s head and fires another round. The Rottweiler is struck in the left side of its throat by the bullet, and it backs away instantly, gasping for breath in a sickening manner through a hole in its windpipe.
Just as Miguel tries to locate the larger dog by turning slightly, a set of sharp teeth clamps down on his throat. In less than a second, he feels the hot breath of his demise, a torrent of disgusting betrayal from a dog he raised as a puppy. The teeth break his skin and clamp down to crush his throat; however, the dog releases its grip for half a second, trying to get a better hold on him. In that moment, Miguel’s instincts tell him to fire the pistol frantically at the dog. He is able get three shots off before the dog reasserts its grip on his throat. Miguel feels the hot breath again as the teeth puncture his skin with crushing pressure on his windpipe. His eyes close tight as the Rottweiler’s powerful jaws begin to tear his throat completely, but then the pressure subsides, and dog’s body goes limp.
She Is Risen (She Is Risen: The Gun Control Case Studies) Page 12
