by Jake Bible
For a woman who was aged and sickly, Michelin thought that she put up quite a struggle as they seesawed with one another for the gun’s ownership—first he was in command, and then she.
“Well don’t just sit there, you idiot!” the president said to Eldridge. “Do something!”
The chief advisor leaned forward and pinned the governor’s shoulders to the seat, which gave Michelin the upper hand.
The president enfolded both his hands over the governor’s, forced the gun’s barrel to the soft underside of her chin, looped his finger around the trigger, and pulled.
The bullet punctured the top of her skull with the exit wound the size of peach. Slowly, the governor arched her body a moment before settling back down and sighing a final breath.
Drippings of blood and gore rained down from the ceiling and landed on her blouse. The gun was still in her hand as she sat there with her head leaning to one side.
The president was covered with blood, his face marred with the bloody runnels of warm wetness. “Son of a bitch!” he cried. Then he looked at his hands, which were also peppered with the governor’s blood. And then at his suit, which held minute traces of pulpy matter. “Dammit! She ruined my Bertucci!”
“It had to be done, Mr. President,” stated Eldridge. “She was going to kill you.”
The president continuously whipped his hands about to shake the blood off them. “What the Hell am I going to do now?”
“We can figure this out.”
“Of course, we can,” he returned. “The question is, how do we turn this to my benefit?”
“Obviously, the woman was not in the right frame of mind. She was ill, dying. She reached into her pocketbook, took out a gun, and she became irrational. Which is the truth, correct? We can definitely trace the gun back to her. That won’t be a problem. Not at all. What we have to do is spin a tale that will benefit you in the eyes of the people in New Miami. It’s all about how we promote this.”
“Promote the killing of a governor?”
“Just listen,” said Eldridge. “Though you were sympathetic to her condition, she was less sympathetic to your policies; therefore, conversations spiraled out of control. When you tried to neutralize the situation regarding a woman with issues of instability and depression, the firearm unfortunately went off and killed the governor. Of course, we’ll have to clean it up a bit and put in more detail, but we can make this work.”
“Do whatever it is that you have to do, John. And make sure you get it right. I don’t want any mistakes on this. I want a thorough effort.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And one other thing.” He reached inside of the governor’s pocketbook and retrieved the tablet, and then handed it to Eldridge. “I want every file on this tablet traced to its source of origin. I want everything deleted, and I want them deleted yesterday. I want you to hack into her systems, her data lines, anything that may hold a marginal trace as to my transactions since the day I took office, and get rid of them.”
“You got it, Mr. President.”
“Look, John, you do this one thing for me, I promise you a villa inside of an Elysium of your choice. I know I don’t have to tell you this, but I know you’ll do a bang up job.”
Eldridge couldn’t hold back a smile “You know I won’t let you down, Mr. President. I never have. I never will.”
President Michelin turned to the governor who leaned to one side, the life smashed out of her by a single gunshot. And then he examined the ceiling above her and watched the slow drip of gore fall and stain her blouse with macabre fascination.
Yes, he thought. He would find a way to benefit from this.
So in tandem, he and John Eldridge considered his options as the vehicle continued on to its final destination.
Mausoleum 2069 is available from Amazon here
