by Simon Parker
“Come on, man! Open up would ya?” the man shouted again. He was waving a wad of bills at Zak. “I’ve got cash, dude. I want a gun, now!” Zak was confused for a second, then put the keys into the lock and was immediately swamped by the impatient crowd. The store was heaving with people buying alarms, pepper spray, pistols, rifles, ammo.
“Everyone’s just so scared, man,” one customer explained. “There’s a crazy loose in this God-forsaken town and I for one am gonna be ready for that sumbitch. He better not try to fuck with my family!”
“I’ve said all along that every home needs its protection.” Zak smiled. He sold baseball bats, crossbows and replica night sticks to those citizens that couldn’t afford guns. He even made a few discreet under-counter sales of grenades and anti-personnel mines.
By three o’clock, Zak had had the busiest day he had ever known in the store. He checked the register. A quick estimate told him he had taken over $66,000. In just one day, he’d covered most of his losses. It hadn’t been the plan, but hey, the panic had been a more than welcome side effect. Maybe he wouldn’t have to close the store after all. He couldn’t expect sales to continue at this level, of course, but Zak was more than happy to ride the wave while it lasted.
That night, Zak celebrated with a few beers at the bar next door. His business was saved, his plan for vengeance all but forgotten. The news and rumour mill would ensure the paranoia would continue for a month or so at least.
“I didn’t see that one coming, Dad,” Zak whispered before oblivion took him that night. “Thanks.”
Sales were crazy for the next week. Zak even had more stock rushed in for the weekend. The following week things began to drop off a little bit. The paranoia was beginning to wane, or maybe everyone who could buy a gun in the shithole town had done so. The following week things had returned to normal. Zak welcomed just three people into his shop one day, and two of those were only purchasing ammo for guns they’d already bought.
Zak sat at the bar that night, contemplating. The store had experienced an unexpected stay of execution, but it was only a stay, not a full pardon. Zak stared into space, sipping his beer until the barmaid jarred him from his thoughts.
“Time to go, hun. I gotta lock up.”
A light flicked on in Zak’s head.
“You’re a freaking genius.” He kissed the girl on both cheeks before happily dancing out of the door, leaving her with a confused smile, shaking her head.
Zak opened the store the next day, but it wasn’t busy which suited him fine. He spent the morning on the phone organising some changes to the storefront, some new shelving, new range of stock and point of sales material. Zak shut the store at 4pm, having put just $60 in the register, but he was happier than he’d been for days now.
Two days later, the stock arrived. The shelving had been fitted and the new signage hung on the storefront. Zak knew he had to wait a short while before he acted on his scheme. He’d evaded capture for his previous crimes and he wanted it to stay that way. This time, there was no desperation, no hurry. After three weeks, when gun sales were practically zero again and he’d only sold a couple of items from the new stock, he knew it was time to act.
That night he pulled out the Hefty and weapons from under the secret panel and slipped out into the shadows once again. He stuck to his original list, for no other reason than those on it were as good as anyone. He no longer blamed them for his situation. Quite the opposite in fact, but he needed targets and these guys had already been scoped. It was just more efficient, saved time. Keith Cochran was the runner who’d worked for Jack Vale. It’d been Cochran who had collected the money that Zak had lost, but that was in the past. Now he was just a poor schmuck at the top of the list who’d pulled the unlucky lotto ticket.
Within minutes Zak reached his first target’s house. This time he had to execute the plan differently if it was to work to its full potential. He sneaked around the house, peeking in all the windows. Score! His target was home alone. That would make things a whole lot easier.
Zak pulled down the black ski mask and walked around to the back of the house again. He was just about to kick the back door in when he thought to check it. Excellent, it was unlocked. Lady Luck was with him tonight. Zak strode in like he owned the place, going directly to the lounge where Cochran sat watching TV. He turned his head and managed to say “What the fu…” before Zak slammed an iron fist square into his nose. Cochran squealed and reflexively raised both hands to his devastated proboscis. Zak grabbed the duct tape from his open pocket and in a heartbeat had wrapped a length around Cochran’s head, trapping his hands and partially sealing his open mouth. Another three circuits around his head made sure he couldn’t move his hands at all.
Cochran’s eyes bulged in fear as he fought for breath, gagging on his own bloody drool. He fell to the floor and Zak stamped on each leg in turn, shattering knee joints and eliciting muffled howls of pain and anguish. Zak had to make this look like the full works, so he flew around the room like a dervish, sweeping photos and ornaments off of a sideboard, crockery off of a table and books from a bookcase. He overturned the TV and smashed the screen, opened and emptied drawers and tipped the sofa over.
Once satisfied that the place appeared as if a burglary had gone wrong, he returned to Cochran’s side and kicked him in the ribs. There were no more squeals of pain. Looked like he’d blacked out. Zak didn’t think Cochran was dead yet, but it didn’t matter to him either way. Cochran would be dead soon if he wasn’t now.
Zak pulled out a wickedly sharp butcher’s knife and a hammer from his belt. Using Cochran’s hair as a handle, he turned the runner’s head. He placed the tip of the butcher’s knife in Cochran’s ear and hit the hilt with the hammer. The blade made a smooth transition right through Cochran’s head, meeting resistance only when it struck the floorboards as it exited Cochran’s other ear, pinning him to the floor in a hideous travesty of an entomologist’s subject.
Zak examined his work of art, nodding his approval. He walked out of the house, blending into the shadows outside as he made his way home.
In the morning, he was once again awakened by the sound of banging on the store door. He smiled and dressed in a hurry. There wasn’t such a queue as before, but the flow of trade that day was significant.
“That crazy mother fucker’s still goin’ and now he’s bustin’ into people’s houses and fuckin’ people up real bad!” one of his customers said, eloquently summing up the latest development.
“Really?” Zak managed to sound surprised.
“It’s a damn good job you’re stocking these alarm systems now. I bet you’re gonna sell a shitload over the next few days, at least until they catch this crazy asshole. People are shittin’ bricks.”
Zak chuckled inwardly, congratulating himself on his incredible marketing strategy. Mmmm, he thought to himself as he counted the till during a lull in the crush of customers. Wonder what I can do next?
Blind Fear
1. Into the Darkness
When Brad Matthews woke up, it was dark. At first he didn’t see anything unusual in that. It must be after midnight after all, but this darkness was like nothing he’d experienced before. He tried to sit up to get his bearings, but the fuzzy remnants of his afternoon binge lay heavy in his head and heavier in his gut.
He lay back down gently, swallowing the sudden flood of saliva that he knew was only the portent of the coming puke storm if he wasn’t careful. He’d been on too many binges of late to take that threat lightly.
As he lay there breathing slowly, trying to control the nausea, he blinked away the salty water that rimmed his eyes. The darkness was so inky, it made no difference if his eyes were open or closed. The effect was dizzying and did nothing to quell the waves of biliousness that crashed over him like storm-tossed ocean waves. His eyes rolled around, seeking a point of reference on which to focus, something to stabilize the tumbling free-fall. He found nothing in the obsidian void.
After breathing
through his nausea like a woman in labour for what seemed like hours, the storm calmed to a gentle ebb and flow, allowing enough respite for him to once again focus on the complete absence of light. He inched up to a sitting position on his bed, cupping his head with his hands to prevent the bomb he felt in there from detonating. He regretted drinking so much. He always did, but even knowing what he’d suffer, he couldn’t stop. There were no answers in the bottom of a glass, but the temporary anaesthetic the booze provided was welcome relief from the jagged wreck his life had become. He groaned and rocked himself, soothing away the pain of regret, trying to clear his head enough to figure out why he couldn’t see anything.
A sudden terrifying thought struck him. What if I’ve gone blind? He opened his eyes and waved his hand in front of his face, hoping for something, anything. All he sensed was the gentle breeze from his fingers. A fear swept over him, crashing with more force than the recent nausea storm.
Blind drunk, that’s what they say isn’t it? Can it really happen? Have I lost my sight? His addled mind raced around in its dark box like a trapped rat, leaping to fearful conclusions. He’d rather lose a limb than his sight.
“Fuuuuccck.” He breathed the word, an eon of despair in a single drawn out syllable. His anxiety was climbing the ladder. If he didn’t get a grip right now, he would risk losing his mind as well as his lunch.
He began his breathing exercises, staying with it until he gained control. He couldn’t allow himself to freak out. He hadn’t felt this uncomfortable with darkness since he was a small child, but something was wrong, badly wrong. He tried to orientate himself again by visualising himself in his room. He knew he was sitting on his bed. That much he could feel, so his window should be to his left, about eight feet from the foot of his bed. But there was no grey rectangle where he expected one, no moonlight, no streetlight. He looked straight ahead to where he knew the door to be. Normally he left the bathroom light on in case he had to go in the night, but there was no sliver of light under the door, nothing to break the oppressive blackness. He fought off another anxiety climb by convincing himself there must be a power cut.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he said out loud, breaking the silence again, taking comfort from the sound of his own voice. “Power’s off and it must be cloudy out, covering the moon or something.”
Anxiety climbed down again, a little old man on the ladder, but something still felt wrong. His features creased into a frown as his mind tried to latch onto that elusive wrongness; what was it? What felt wrong? It wasn’t just a feeling, something had sounded wrong too. His bedroom was carpeted, had thick textured wallpaper on the walls, full bookcases and cupboards full of stuff. It should sound tight, compressed, but it didn’t.
“Hellloooo?” he called out, an experiment to help make sense of the chaos behind his useless eyes. He was surprised by the sound. There was a definite hollow sound, like he was in a house devoid of furniture and fittings. The sound gave him an eerie feeling. Maybe I’m not in my home, he thought and then a tumble of other thoughts chased it. Where the hell am I then? How the fuck did I get here? Did I come alone or was I brought here? If I was, who brought me? Why? Where are they?
The tumbling stopped when he heard the clanging, deep in the blackness.
2. Next of Kin
Damian had been beside himself eight hours ago when he’d got the call, but he’d had to gather his wits and hold it together for the family. They were all counting on him to be their rock. Now, as he stood by his son’s bedside, tears left silvery lines down his unshaven cheeks. His wife, Louise, gently stroked her hand over the moist lines, mopping up the wetness. She flashed a humourless smile to show she still cared about him, even as her baby boy lay fighting for his life. Damian sighed, trying to keep a lid on his emotions. He glanced across the hospital bed that held his eldest child, Brad, to the seat that held his daughter, Christa. She stared at her brother, her face expressionless.
Poor kid, Damian thought as he watched her. It’s all been too much for her, seeing her brother like this. Emotional overload.
He felt for his baby girl. She was only twenty but she’d already been through so much. The underage drinking thing, the pregnancy and the abortion, the drug use and then the suicide attempt. But she’d been ok for a couple of years now, much more stable since she’d started the counselling sessions. Bless her, she’s had it rough. Seeing her brother in this condition must be hard for her. The two of them had barely spoken since Brad had found her sprawled out in the bathroom, soaked in her own blood. If he hadn’t come home from work early and found her that day, she’d probably be in the ground now, a success at failure. She’d blamed Brad for stopping her.
Another round of tears escaped Damian’s eyes and forged new tracks down his face. He truly felt for his kids. Life was so cruel to them nowadays and society just kept getting worse. Damian was at the age now where he frequently reminisced about the good ol' days and never missed an opportunity to slam today’s culture for being lewd, crude and mean.
He watched Christa’s unflinching porcelain features for a moment more, his heart going out to her. Then he turned his attention back to his son who lay on the cold, white hospital sheets. Brad had always looked out for his sister. He was a good lad. No, not a lad any longer. He was twenty-six now. He’d always protected Christa from unwanted attention at school. He’d walked her to and from her after school clubs in winter when the evenings were dark. He’d even spent hours some nights helping her with her homework. How many older brothers would do that for their kid sisters? Damian just prayed his son would see his twenty-seventh birthday.
He looked back to Louise. Her red-rimmed eyes met his. The pained half smile and the gentle squeeze on his hand spoke volumes, more than any of the words they both struggled to find.
Christa sat, appearing to anyone who cared to look as if she was catatonic.
3. The Clanging
The clanging was barely audible at first. Brad held his breath, straining to hear it, but his fearful heart throbbed in his ears and made it difficult to pinpoint. It seemed to come from a great distance, but from every direction.
Brad allowed himself to exhale a stagnant gasp, trying to silence it in shudders. The sound became clearer, seemed to be getting closer. One repetitive sound, as if Brad was trapped in a huge bell jar and some giant finger kept tapping the glass. His breaths were still coming in staccato relief, but the clanging had now increased in volume significantly. Brad called an image to mind of the Sunday walk to church with his family as a child. The tintinnabulations of the mighty bell growing in intensity as they drew closer to the massive stone edifice that had always filled him with dread. This sound had the same effect.
He sat shivering, eyes wide, staring into the nothingness, focused solely on that sound. All thoughts of where he was and how he got here had been banished to irrelevance. All that mattered was the sound and the fear it instilled deep in his marrow. He closed his eyes again, as if staring into the abyssal gloom was distracting him from locating the source of the relentless clanging. Louder now, closer, his heart banging almost in time with the rhythm of the infernal clang, clang, clang. It wasn’t the sound of a bell, not the fearful bell from St Peter the Apostle he had loathed as a child. It was more like the harsh ring of an immense hammer on an enormous anvil.
For some reason, that analogy sent a spear of ice through him, knocking the breath from him. The surge of overwhelming terror enveloped him as surely as if he had plunged into the frigid waters of an arctic wasteland. Louder. Louder. Incessant clanging of steel on steel. Closer, until he could feel the sound jarring his bones, vibrating through his brains. The clanging now matched his racing heart beat for beat, surrounding him, encasing him.
He gripped his head, covering his ears in an attempt to block out the accursed sound, but it was as useless as closing his eyes to black out the darkness. The unremitting, thunderous clang reached an intensity that drew the first scream from Brad at the intense pain he felt, not only
inside his head, but through every fibre of his body. The onerous clanging, his screams and the banging rush of blood as it pulsed in time made his ears buzz at the cacophony.
There was no reason to his thoughts any more, no order. Panic and terror reigned supreme and froze him to the spot. Then, when Brad feared he would shatter like a glass, the clanging stopped. There was no after ring, no receding. It just stopped dead.
Seconds ago he had begged, screaming, for the sound to stop. Now he begged again, a whispering wish for some sound to break this vacuum. He heard a drip, then another. This time the sound had direction. The first drip came from in front of him, the second from behind him. Drip after drip after drip, each from a new position in the cavernous blackness.
A new wave of fear sent a torrent of goosebumps along his flesh. His skin crawled at the eerie sounds. They didn’t sound like water dripping into water. The sounds were colder, more visceral. Drip…splat…drip…splat. Like blood dripping on bathroom tiles. A thick coagulating drip, then the falling silence before…splat, the slow-motion impact and a crown of red rising from the puddle.
He shook his head, trying to master his petulant thoughts, but they continued to taunt him with visions of torturous agonies. He prayed for light, just a chink or shaft of light, anything to give him some measure of where he was and what the hell was happening. His prayer was answered. He instantly wished it hadn’t been.
4. Prayers for the Dying
Damian’s mind drifted in a void as he sat, staring at his first born, his pride and joy. Brad was so still, tubes and wires everywhere. The hypnotic beep of machines and the ceaseless huff and hiss of the ventilator were the only sounds Damian cared about. He wasn’t seeing his son as he was now. His mind’s eye roamed the avenues of memories, each stored in a special place. Soft focus images of his baby boy playing in the sun, playing on the beach with his sister as a child, playing football in the park on Sundays after church, fishing at the lake, laughing when his sister squealed at the maggots. Images of Brad learning to ride his bike, of paintings that had adorned the fridge for years.
