Catharsis (Book 3): Catastrophe

by Campbell, D. Andrew

  Now as I close the locker behind me and walk towards Ren, I ask, “Ok, buddy, what have you got?”

  “These organizations are secretive at the best of times,” he begins. “And with what’s been happening this past week, security has been increased and communications are even more limited. It’s been a nightmare trying to back trace any leads I’ve uncovered in order to clarify the command structures. These people are very good at obscuring what they do.

  “Ironically, I ended up having a breakthrough when I stopped trying to hack their systems, and I instead focused on the government. Multiple agencies had files on these guys that allowed me a chance to clarify what I had been seeing and understand the information I was bringing in. Turns out local law enforcement already knew who the top people in the organization were and where they lived. They just couldn’t do anything about it without a solid case of probably cause. And that’s something the cartels have been very efficient at making sure doesn’t exist.

  “Using the police’s information to verify what I had been tracking, I’ve figured out at least one of the cartel bosses’ homes. It should only be a few days before I figure out more of them. But at least we have a starting point.”

  Looking over Ren’s shoulder and reading some of the reports up on the screen, I can get a gist of what’s going on. “It looks like the police would love to bust this place, but they haven’t been able to yet,” I say. “So, they’ve known where to attack for a while, but just not the how to go about it. And that’s where we come in. I’m the definition of how, but I’ve just been searching for the where. Together we’ll make a pretty good team. It’s almost like we’re doing them a favor.”

  “Almost,” he agrees a bit reluctantly. “Just not sure they’re going to see it the same way.”

  “That’s fine. I’m sure once I’ve finished my business there, and they see how much better off the city is, then they’ll be appreciative. They might not be able to put it into words right away, but that’s ok. I’ll forgive them. It’s what I do.”

  Ren chuckles before replying. “That’s mighty generous of you.”

  “Thank you,” I say and give a small bow. “Now where is this place and what can you tell me about it? I’ve been itching to get out of here and stretch my legs.” Plus the Darkness has been digging at my insides. Ren may be content to just let me bring him lampreys while I hunt down the occasional lonely stranger, but I’ve been resisting a constant ache to go out and do more. The gentle, non-violent feedings I’ve been doing the past few days are no longer satisfying me. I need more. My ability to resist its compulsion to go out and destroy is getting weaker the longer I put it off. I fear what the backlash may be if I ignore it too much longer.

  “I was prepared for that” he tells me. “Once I knew where to go, the actual hacking of the security was much easier. I’ve been digging through some of their security cameras on the property and watching how the place is run. It’s fortified, but I doubt it’s anything that will stop you. It looks like they’re still preparing for a normal intruder and not expecting someone with your particular set of…skills. That works to our benefit.”

  “That’s good,” I say.

  “Agreed, but I doubt it will stay that way. One of these guys is going to eventually learn from the mistakes of others and be better prepared for your visit. Right now we still have their hubris on our side. On some level they think they are invincible, so they don’t prepare for the unlikely and impossible. Just the expected and what they’ve experienced before. That works to our advantage.”

  “I’m willing to accept that. And use it as long as possible,” I say and look at the house’s floor plans that Ren has brought up on the screens along with several video feeds from their internal security systems. I watch as large men with even larger guns wander down ornate, but empty, hallways. Other men roam the house’s extensive lawn and property with even more guns and weapons. It’s obvious they are preparing for a war. They just don’t realize yet it’s a war with me.

  “One more thing,” Ren says and breaks my concentration as I watch a group of five men step up to a long, black car as it pulls up the house’s driveway. “I have a plan that may help us in the long run. I’m going to have you leave a little surprise behind at this place when you leave.”

  “A ‘surprise’,” I ask and look up suddenly. The last time Ren had me bring a surprise with me on one of these trips was when I visited the lawyer’s house those many months ago. I had planted explosives in his attic in case we needed to cover our tracks or shake up the organization. Our intent had always been to detonate it while the house was empty, but obviously things didn’t end up that way.

  “Yes, I’m going to have you take some items with you to be left behind so that it appears this was done by a rival,” he tells me apparently oblivious to my thoughts. “It might be beneficial if they’re looking at each other for this instead of us.”

  “So I’m planting evidence there,” I say, relieved that we’re not going down the same path as before. “Seems simple enough. I mean if it’s good enough for crooked cops on television shows, then it’s good enough for me.”

  “Exactly,” Ren says with a small laugh, and then begins to explain the layout and my best approach.

  It becomes obvious that Ren has been planning this out for some time. He made sure he knew the information before he brought it to me, and it shows. The plan he presents to me is solid and well researched. My goal is to enter the house and make my way to the cartel boss who lives there. Once I find him, then I’m to take him out and leave behind what I brought with me. Once that is done, I need to make my escape and find my way back to the warehouse to await the fallout.

  The only surprise for me is how well Ren accepts the idea of my killing the cartel head. My friend has a history of being non-violent and passive, and I was a little afraid he would resist my desire to take the plan in this direction. But he doesn’t. I don’t know if that is because he knows extreme measures are needed now to prevent the collapse of our city or because the presence of the infection in him is beginning to alter his thinking. Either way I accept it and embrace it. It’s going to make my life much easier.

  As Ren wraps up, he tells me that the idea is to strike tonight once it’s dark outside. This gives me a couple of hours to prepare myself. It turns out to be a time that I need. I’ve tried telling myself that tonight isn’t going to bother me. It’s a natural progression of what we’ve been doing, but that’s not true. In the past when I went out, it was always to just stop the drug trade. Anybody who died was an unintended consequence. Collateral damage. No death had ever been planned prior to my leaving the warehouse. Sure, they may have happened sometimes, but they weren’t my goal. Tonight, though? I am planning on killing at least person. Most likely more. I’m bringing guns with me. That’s something I’ve never done before. Never even thought about doing before.

  No, tonight is different. I’m different. The deaths that happen tonight may be necessary to bring this to a close, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy them. I’ll have to do my best to remember that.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  “This is so much fun!” I hiss through a smile as I pull the trigger on the rifle in my hands and watch another frantic armed guard drop to the lawn. He’s the fourth one I’ve dropped, and each one has only required one shot each. Four shots and four dropped foes. And they still have no idea where it’s coming from.

  “Boom,” I whisper and pull the trigger of the silenced assault rifle in my hands. The pah-chink-TOOM it makes as the slug leaves the barrel is far from quiet, but at this distance they can’t locate where it’s coming from. A fifth man drops screaming to the ground and clutching his head. My aim was a bit off on the last shot as he turned right when I pulled the trigger. Bummer.

  Readjusting my sights, I pull the trigger again and the screaming ceases.

  Hitting makeshift targets in the backyard had been one thing, but actually using my abilities to take down l
iving targets is an entirely different one. And I love it. Knowing that these men are being paid by the millionaires bringing their hateful drugs into my city only makes the enjoyment easier to swallow. I have no regrets now. I’m not even sure what I was worried about before.

  Exactly, I hear the Darkness whisper to me. This is what you were created for. This is why you exist. Don’t resist the natural order of things.

  I’m not sure if I completely agree with the reasoning it presents, but I can’t deny I enjoy the warmth it floods my system with each time I watch one of these thugs drop to the ground. The Darkness is egging me on, and I know it. But I’m also not resisting it.

  “You know you could have just snuck in,” Ren tells me over my earpiece. “You didn’t have to confront those guys. You could have completely avoided them. The route to the roof access is still open and unguarded like I told you before.”

  “I’m aware of that,” I respond. “But this just felt right. It’s for the best, anyway.” And that is partially true. The first guy I shot was close to the path I needed to take. It was possible I could have snuck past him undetected, but the Darkness suggested it might be safer to remove him in case he noticed me and sounded the alarm. It wasn’t a necessity, but it made sense. After the first guy dropped, another came over to investigate and I had to drop him before he could sound the alarm. Those two quickly became three, and then they piled up as the Darkness rewarded me for each successful pull of the trigger.

  “Uh huh,” he says unconvinced. “Better make your way to the house now. The other guys wandering the place will stumble upon the men you dropped sooner or later. Once that happens, your ability to avoid confrontations will diminish rapidly.”

  “Fine, fine,” I mutter. “Makes sense. I’m moving now,” I say and begin trotting through the property’s small woods, so I can make my way into the house. Avoiding confrontation may have been our original intention, but that’s no longer my driving motivation anymore. Coming face-to-muscled-face with the cartel boss’s thugs sounds enticing. Especially with the Darkness pushing an additional bump of delicious adrenaline through my body every time I kill one. It’s a reward that’s hard to ignore.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “You did that on purpose!” Ren says disapprovingly. “You could have avoided them, but you made sure they saw you. Those two were definitely not necessary!”

  I try to tune the words out as I pull the trigger on my pistol two more times and put holes in the remaining two men in the hallway around me. Eight more men are now sprawled on the floor in various awkward contortions of death. All now deceased or soon to be within moments. All of them shot before they even realized who, or even what, they were encountering.

  Ren’s correct, of course. These men had no idea I was sneaking up on them, and I could have bypassed them with no trouble at all. That’s not what I did, though. As I had begun to move past them in the shadows, the Darkness whispered to me that it was better that I remove them now while I had the advantage. Otherwise they may come back after me once the alarm is officially sounded.

  It’s for your own safety, it told me. Better to attack them now and remove them from the equation before they can sneak up on you later. That made sense, so I slowed a bit as I went by them so that one of them saw my movement as I hurtled past. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get them to turn. Once I had ensured I had been spotted, there was no need to pretend and I unleashed my hold on my abilities. I’m sure they died wondering how a shadow had taken form right next to them and swallowed them whole. It would be the last thought they ever had.

  “That guy saw me,” I protest unconvincingly. “I had to do something.”

  There is no reply as the hallway goes quiet around me. I’m sure somebody in the house heard something, so my time will be limited. Staring at the bodies around me on the ground, the Hunger grabs my stomach with a twist to remind me that I’ve been using quite a bit of energy without bothering to replenish myself. I can’t tell right now if I actually need the energy or if the Hunger is just reacting to all the blood around me. All I can feel is the warmth of the Darkness shrouding me from the impact of any doubts or anxiety my actions may have caused.

  Regardless, I have a few moments of solitude with no other living people around, so I take advantage of one of the wounded men at my feet and relieve him of the remaining bits of life left in him. Seconds later I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and stand up. The cramping that had been creeping into my stomach before has completely subsided. The Hunger has been quieted.

  “Where to next?” I ask, although I already know the answer. I’ve memorized the layout of the house and the route I’m supposed to take. My question is more rhetorical than anything else, but Ren responds anyway after several moments of silence.

  “Down the hall to the right. He’s still in his office. But that might not be for long,” he says and I listen for his explanation as I jog down the lushly carpeted hallway. “Looks like your guys in the yard are about to be discovered. I’d say you have about fifteen seconds before all Hell breaks loose in there. Better make the most of it.”

  He didn’t come right out and say it, but I know what Ren means. I need to get to the boss before he’s alerted and has a chance to lock himself in his safe room. That was always our biggest worry with this. If he finds out what is happening before I get to him, and he escapes to his custom-built room then I may not be able to finish him off. Getting through the thick steel walls and locked door of that room may be even beyond my abilities. That’s what’s been bothering Ren with all the unnecessary causalities. Not only am I killing people when death wasn’t required, but I was leaving warning signs behind me that might make success an impossibility.

  This was all something I knew, but the Darkness helped convince me it didn’t matter. Now I’m fifteen seconds away from a possible failure, and that isn’t something I’m willing to let happen.

  Inhaling deeply, I pull on my ability to slow time around me. If the clock is my enemy right now, then I’m just going to remove it from the equation. It may burn through whatever I have left to make this happen, but if this goes as expected then there will be an ample supply up ahead to refill myself.

  As the world comes to a standstill around me, I take off sprinting for the room I know is ahead of me. I turn the corner and see the closed door that leads to the office. Without slowing my speed, I leap into the air and curl myself into a ball so that I smash into the thick wood like a small, female rock fired from an oversized slingshot. The door explodes from my impact and I land in the center of a large, well-decorated room. There is a massive oak desk in front of me and walls covered in book shelves and granite statues and ridiculously-expensive looking vases. I take all of this in in the moment it takes me to land and stand up.

  There are seven people in this room. One is an older, bearded gentleman wearing an expensive, black suit that is unbuttoned around his neck with a silky, purple tie hanging loosely to one side. I immediately recognize him as the cartel boss, himself. Another man is tall and lanky and bald and something about him reminds me of a cross between a weasel and a light pole. His dark suit and tightly-wound green tie are pressed and starched so crisply that they almost seem to reflect the fireplace burning in the corner of the room. I’m not sure who this man is, but he looks important.

  The other five people around me all look like the other generic thugs I had encountered throughout the house. Large, heavily-muscled, wearing impressively-tailored suits and holding weapons that seem to be dwarfed by their massive hands.

  Behind one of the guards, I notice one of the bookshelves is slid slightly forward revealing a small room behind it. That would be the cartel boss’s highly-touted safe room. His escape in case of an emergency. That room, though, is currently unoccupied, and even better than that is the fact that I am now standing between the boss and his path to it. Not that it’s going to matter to him, or anyone else in this room, much longer.

  Releasing my temporary hold on
the passage of time with an almost audible pop, everything around me begins to rush back up to its normal pace at a dizzying pace. The effect, although quite useful while it’s happening, can be disorienting once it’s over.

  The well-dressed man in front of me’s eyes widen in surprise, and I sense he is about to say something when I make my next move which erases whatever those words might have been. Freeing my pistol in one fluid move I spin and raise it until I can sight the largest of my targets.

  CRACK! The pistol in my hand barks once, and the cartel boss stumbles backwards clutching at his chest. With my primary target neutralized, I have to evaluate who in the room is the next most critical. The ‘weasel pole’ man looks important, but not dangerous. Killing him would probably help our cause, but ignoring him for now might be best for my immediate safety.

  Spinning this time in the opposite direction so that I can face the two men who had been on either side of the door that I had just crashed through, I pull the trigger twice more. Both men stumble backwards and slump to the ground without ever pulling out their guns.

  Easy enough, I think and begin searching the room for the other three armed men I had noticed previously. They need to be removed from the battle as quickly as possible. Angry men with guns are never good for my health.

  THACK. THACK. THACK. THACK. THACK.

  Three different guns go off from three separate corners of the room, and their reports are immediately followed by the bee-like whines of bullets tearing the air around me. The men have all ducked behind the limited cover of the room and are firing at me. They managed to recover from my entrance and assault amazingly quickly. I think I may have just encountered a higher class of thug than the ones I normally interact with. These men might prove to be a challenge.

  Taking aim at the man to my left, I squeeze the trigger of my semi-automatic pistol and watch him deflate with the impact a moment later.