by Simon Parker
That’s it! she thought right at him. You are not going to break me, you rancid piece of crap. You will not break me. He just smiled and nodded, turning back to his intimidating array of tools and weapons on his table.
Andrea struggled against her bonds. How could she think without thinking? What could she do to survive? She wanted to live, more than anything. She wanted to go back to her sweet little life, regain what she had lost. But how?
Rage began to build in her at the hopelessness of it all, her desperation. The pain in her right arm was unbearable, but still she yanked at the binding, using the pain to fuel her anger. The tape split. Without thinking, Andrea jumped to her feet and swung the chair that was still bound to her good arm, crashing it down on the hood of the man who still had his back to her. The tape binding her wrist to the chair split open as the wood disintegrated on his neck.
“Surprised you didn’t I, you sick fuck!” she screamed, flecks of red spittle spraying. She grabbed at the first thing she touched on the table as the man fell to his knees. She raised the bar, the one he had used on her, above her head and rained down blows on his back and neck again and again. It was enormously gratifying to hear and feel the bastard’s bones cracking. Andrea was in full instinctual rage now, primal screaming and wailing, landing blow after blow on the now defenceless man crumpled before her. The metal bar, slick with blood, slipped from her hands. She turned to the table, her hand falling on a small sickle. In that brief moment, he had impossibly jumped up unheard and attempted to grab her. Without hesitation or thought, she swung the sickle. The glinting arc of the blade turned red as it sliced through his outstretched fingers. He yelped and staggered back, his digits dropping to the concrete.
Andrea stepped forward faster than his retreat, wildness in her eyes, carnivorous hunger in the stare that locked between them, blind rage in her banshee screams. The sickle arched over her head, casting its trail of blood spatter across the ceiling as it descended to meet its mark. It embedded in the shoulder of the now-cowering man. He bellowed in pain, dropping further back onto his haunches. Far from content, Andrea ripped the dripping steel from its bed in his shoulder and brought it down again, this time taking off an ear. The man sank further, squealing in agony as Andrea struck yet again. Changing the angle, she threw her razor-sharp swing horizontally, opening his jugular. A jet of blood splashed down his robe, invisible on the black but for the slick shine.
Her fury abated. Panting after her exertions, her energy spent, her job done, Andrea stared dully at the man dying at her feet. He desperately tried to clamp the bloody stumps of his fingers over the ragged wound on his neck, a vain attempt to stem the flow of his life juices. A smile touched his lips.
“Well done,” he rasped, and drew his last.
Andrea felt a righteous triumph. She’d done it, overcome all the adversity. The captor slaughtered by the hand of his victim, and now she was free. She could get out of here, back to her sweet life. Her grin was victorious, if a little maniacal, but as she reached the door, her smile dropped.
A small flame licked through the keyhole and spread rapidly up the metal door. What was happening? Why was there a fire? No! No! She had just beaten the odds. Why this? Why now? The door was now fully aflame, the rectangle filled with raging heat. Andrea searched the room, desperate for another exit. There was no other way out.
She faced the inferno, panic lessening as she saw a figure in the flames. Was this help? Maybe a fireman? As her mind reeled between hope and desolation, the figure became clearer, then stepped through the melted, flaming portal.
“Hello Andrea, we’ve been watching you.” The hollow voice reverberated through every bone in her body. Terror froze her to the spot.
“How rude of me. Please allow me to introduce myself. Some people know me as Mastema.”
Andrea shivered in spite of the still-raging inferno all around her. Mastema took a step closer to her.
“You’ve done well, Andrea,” he chimed, looking down at the slumped figure in the black robe. “I knew you could do it.”
Confusion clouded Andrea’s eyes. Who or what was this thing? As if in answer to her question, he laughed.
“Not heard of me?” he said, feigning hurt. “Let me explain for you. My job is to find good souls, and trust me Andrea, you were quite a find, and to tempt them into the ways of our dark Lord and Master.”
He threw his hands wide and his head back and bellowed, “Lord God Almighty, look how your child has fallen - become a murderess.” He paused, looking for all the world as if he was waiting for a reply. When none came, his gaze returned to Andrea.
“You’re mine now, bitch!” he cackled. He reached out with what looked like a human hand with talons and gripped her face. An intense white heat enveloped her, shattered her mind. They vanished into a diminishing ball of light as Andrea’s soul was claimed and dragged into damnation.
Bull in a Bear Market
Zachary Franklin sat staring at the glass front door of his shop, trying to manifest a customer with his mind, someone to come in and buy something. Anything. Zak knew if he didn’t turn things around soon, he’d have to close the store for good. This was his family store. His grandfather, James, had opened ‘Franklin Sports and Armory’ in 1928 and run it until Zak’s father Ben (yes, Benjamin Franklin, original huh?) had taken over in 1970 when Grampa J had died. Zak had been working in the store since he could remember. He’d been left to run it in ’95 when his father had fallen ill with the cancer but even when his dad lay in the hospital, vomiting his soul out after chemo, Ben had treated him like an office junior, insisting on daily reports and telling Zak everything he needed to do, like a check list from opening to locking up time.
“I know, sir,” Zak had protested. Zak resented his father’s treatment of him, but he was born of a generation that still referred to their fathers as ‘sir’ and he wasn’t about to break that convention. Two years later, as his father lay on his death bed, he had used the last remaining energy to raise his hand and cup his son’s face.
“You’ve done me proud, son. It’s yours now. I know you won’t let me down.” Those had been his last words. Zak’s mind, eternally hungry for a small bit of praise from his father, had chewed them over again and again. He couldn’t help but notice that even though his father had finally expressed a little pride and love for him after so many years of making Zak feel he was a disappointment, the final phrase he had uttered had been tainted by his concerns for the business.
Zak had his ups and downs over the last fifteen years. The turn of the millennium had seen record profits as Zak had decided to place a regular ad in Guns and Ammo. This move, along with his decision to create a website, had given him a national, and to some extent, international customer base, but that spike in sales had been short-lived. With the economy in free fall the world over, business had been gradually decreasing. Now it had reached the point of no return. Zak had been number crunching for the last six months, as afraid of letting his late father down as he was of losing the business and his home above the store. Takings had suffered so much of late that he was now earning in a month what he used to earn in a week.
He glanced at the door again, but still it didn’t jingle its announcement of a pending sale. Zak shook his head and took another futile look at his books, mumbling a short entreaty to his long-lost father.
“I don’t know what the fuck to do, Dad. I’m going to lose the shop unless I turn up a miracle in the next week or two.” He closed his eyes and then huffed a humourless laugh at his own desperation. His thoughts strayed from ways he could save the store to the smug faces men who were part of the reason he was knee deep in this shit. He closed his eyes and ground his teeth as he remembered the bet they’d talked him into making. A sure thing, they’d told him. Can’t lose. So he’d bet everything he could manage, all his savings, everything in the safe, and most of what was in the till, all in the hope that it would bring his store back from the brink and give him breathing space to re-p
lan his future.
That had been two weeks ago. That ‘sure thing’ had turned out to be not so sure. He’d lost every cent he had and now, nothing short of the prayed-for miracle would save him or the store. He knew he’d been suckered, but what could he do about it?
Suddenly it struck him. It seemed so obvious, but until now he’d had his sorry head stuck so far up his ass that it’d escaped him. He got up to lock the door, glancing both ways in case a customer was headed in. When he saw no-one, he turned the sign in the window to ‘closed’ and moved around the store gathering everything he’d need.
The plan hadn’t evolved, hadn’t even needed planning really. It had landed fully formed in that instant, like that moment when the sun peeks over a mountain and blinds you. Once he’d stowed everything in his black flak jacket, he sat in quite meditation at the back of the store, waiting for the night to steal the light from the streets he would be stalking. By 8pm it was dark outside and Zak suddenly snapped from his statuesque pose into a sudden flurry of motion.
“Time to move out,” he said to himself, like a sergeant ordering his men into action. As he left the back of the store, he paused for a brief moment, drew in a deep calming breath and blew it out through pursed lips. He genuflected and muttered, “I hope you’re with me on this, Pops” and raised his gaze skyward. Then he moved out, disappearing into the shadows.
Twenty minutes later, he was safely stowed in a dark alley at the side of the bookmaker’s place of business. Now it would be a waiting game. Zak resumed his statuesque pose, barely moving a muscle, but he didn’t have to wait too long. The back door of the shop opened and Jack Vale stepped out, lighting a cigarette as the door closed behind him. He pulled his cell from his pocket and leaned his shoulder on the wall as he made a call, his back to Zak.
Zak waited until Vale finished the call, then for a few seconds more to be sure no-on was going to join bookmaker. Drawing a razor-sharp hunting knife from its sheath, he struck with the speed of a praying mantis, grabbing Vale from behind. He covered Vale’s mouth while simultaneously reaching round to Vale’s groin, slicing open just below the scrotum, an old trick he’d learned from a documentary about WWII Special Forces. He hit his target. Vale’s femoral artery dumped a sickening splash of blood onto his shoes. A muffled squeal escaped through Zak’s fingers as Vale’s bowel loosened. In mere seconds, Vale’s eyes fluttered like a flirting woman’s. He finally dropped like the sack of shit he was. The vile odour of Vale’s final movement assaulted Zak’s nostrils.
“You fuckin’ dirty asshole,” he spat as he raised his heavy boot and stamped on the slumped form of the man who’d taken his life savings.
Zak gazed at the corpse for a few seconds, surprised that he’d actually done it, amazed that his pulse had only risen a little. He felt eerily calm. He took two paces back, then ran and kicked the body full force. It slid sideways a little, revealing the dark pool forming underneath it. Zak pulled a scrap of paper a pen from his jacket pockets, putting a single red line, like the slash of his blade, through Jack Vale’s name. He replaced the pen and paper, spat on Vale’s head and melted back into the shadows.
He moved at a swift trot, avoiding lights until he left the built-up downtown area. Once he’d entered a nicer residential area, it became easier to keep in the dark until he reached a cedar-shingled family home. He moved around the home, boot-clad feet making no sound as he cautiously peered into every window. Perfect, only the kid and his sister were home.
Zak found his new plan arrived in his mind, complete in an instant as before. He moved like oil through the darkness, black on black, until he reached the back porch. If he knew football jocks, and he was pretty sure he did, then this new plan would pan out clean, like Vale. Without pausing to consider timing or consequence, he eased up the steps and pulled the screen door open, then let it drop back shut. As it banged, he leapt off the stoop and vanished into the blackness. Within seconds Brian Stewart appeared, silhouetted in the amber light from the kitchen door. He stood there for a few moments before calling back into the house.
“Musta just bin wind or summat.” Then the door slammed shut. Zak smiled to himself as he counted to sixty before running back onto the stoop and repeating the trick. This time it was barely ten seconds before Brian came flying out through the door.
“Who the fuck is out there?” he bawled as he rocketed out into the yard. Zak held his position in the dark recesses near the porch until Brian had gone back in, slamming the door behind him. Zak could hear him shouting in the house.
Fucking kid has anger issues, Zak thought before he moved up to the stoop again. Probably explains the fucked up fumble pass that cost the team the championship.
He grimaced as he remembered the feeling that engulfed him in the closing minutes of that game, the night Brian had fumbled the pass. Thirty seconds earlier, he’d been showboating and one of the defence called him a prick. Brian grabbed the guy by the balls and throat, and the winning pass sailed right by where he should have been. Fucking idiot couldn’t control his ego or temper for thirty damn seconds. He’d cost Zak a shitload of money for no better reason than he didn’t like losing a pissing contest.
Zak snapped back, his mind now firmly on the task in hand. He moved from the shadows once more, drawing his satin-smooth, razor-edged knife again as he did so. He breathed in through his nose, closing his eyes for a brief moment as he inhaled the excitement that was thick in the air. He opened the screen door again, stepping to its open side before letting it drop back in place with a bang. Zak began counting, He didn’t get far. In less than five seconds, Brian hollered as he grabbed the door handle. Zak flexed his muscles in preparation as Brian yanked the door almost off its hinges, baseball bat in hand.
“Right, you little fuck…” he yelled as he burst through the portal. Zak used Brian’s forward momentum against him to double the penetrative force of the blade he swung to meet the ex-football player. The knife pierced Brian’s skull right between the eyes and after a brief resistance, slid up to the hilt with an audible pop. Time hung like a pendant arrested mid-swing as Brian hovered motionless, his mouth frozen in an unuttered expletive. His eyes, not yet registering the shock, flickered a little. The baby flicker grew until it was a judder and then matured into a full-blown twitch. The dance of the dead. The pause was released, the pendant swung again and Brian Stewart dropped to his knees in a marbled pool of blood and piss. Zak withdrew the knife, wiping the pink speckles of grey matter on Brian’s shoulder. The body was slumped forward in a grotesque mimicry of a supplicant seeking Mecca. Zak was disgusted.
“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” he whispered to himself. “Big tough guys on the outside, but piss and shit your pants when it comes to the crunch. Pussies.”
He watched the delicate filigree of steam as the cool of the evening stole the warmth from the pooling fluids beneath Brian. Zak raised a boot and brought it down with shattering force on the back of the prostrate line-backer’s skull. He didn’t even waste words on him, just spat at the steaming cadaver and stalked off before alarms were raised.
As he retreated into his flat above the store, Zak mulled over the other names on the list. He knew killing another tonight would be unwise. He might have surrendered to the fact that the store was doomed, but he wasn’t ready to surrender his liberty just yet. By now both bodies would have been found. It was time to clean himself up and hunker down out of sight.
He set about destroying any incriminating evidence, just in case somehow the trail led them to him. He wouldn’t evade the law, but he could buy himself a little time by being careful. That was all that mattered … all he needed. He removed his blood-splashed clothes and placed them in a black Hefty bag. He checked his pistol’s slide and ensured the safety was on. He hadn’t needed it tonight but he had plans for tomorrow night that included its use, if only he made it that far without being apprehended. He stashed the bag, along with his boots, knife and gun, in the secret panel under the floorboards at the bot
tom of his gun locker.
After double-locking the gun locker, he showered, scrubbing every nook and cranny of his body with bleach. The shower tray received the same treatment. He’d seen CSI and knew that the bleach would destroy any blood evidence that may be there. He was pretty sure it would anyway. He hadn’t paid that much attention to the story. Most of his attention had been focused on Marg Helgenberger’s butt during most of the episodes. He smirked at the memory.
He sat on the edge of his bed once he’d cleaned everything and everywhere he could think of. There was no going back now. The store his father and grandfather had cherished was a lost cause, but he hoped he could buy enough time to allow him to eradicate those responsible for its demise before the law caught up with him. He whispered a sincere apology to his father and grandfather, genuflected and lay down to sleep. Just before he closed his eyes, he saw blue strobing lights reflected on the blinds, but they went screaming past. They weren’t coming for him… yet. He closed his eyes and welcomed oblivion.
He was awakened by persistent banging. At first, his foggy mind thought it was just a pounding headache. Then he realised the banging’s source was external. Someone was pounding on the store door downstairs. Zak breathed a heavy sigh as he looked at the clock beside his bed. 9am. He was disappointed they’d caught up with him so soon, but there was a weight lifted from his shoulders now. It was over. He had no responsibilities left, he would be in jail, fed, clothed and looked after. He even managed to crack a wry smile as he dressed to go down and let the police in.
When he reached the front door of the store with the keys in his hand, he was taken aback. It wasn’t the police outside the store. Instead, a crowd of people gathered there. The one who had been relentlessly banging stopped as he saw Zak.
“Open up, man,” he shouted through the safety glass. Zak wasn’t sure he wanted to open the door. The guy seemed a little distraught and desperate. Why was the mob here? As much as he had hoped the police would leave him alone, Zak now wanted their protection and that of the justice system. He didn’t relish the idea of being torn apart by an angry mob! How had they found him so quickly?
