by Sean Platt
Few things were as dangerous as a fucker with a knife in your intimate space. Claiming the knife might be possible, but maybes weren’t aces, and Birdman was as likely to find himself lucky enough to stab Boricio in the arms, or get through to his gut.
Boricio had to stay away from the blade, dodging and weaving until he saw a chance to turn the fucker’s face to oatmeal on the road.
He dodged Birdman’s first attempt, ducking back as he kept both men in front of him.
Nose Ring might have been armed, but Boricio didn’t recall seeing a weapon in the man’s hands.
For the moment, Boricio focused only on Birdman. Grizzly woke bears from hibernation — or at least anyone within earshot — with his screams. It was only a matter of time before the gas station attendant heard something and called the police.
Boricio had to get past Birdman, then the fuck out of Dodge. “Come on,” he said, “why don’t you give up now before someone else gets hurt?”
“Only person gettin’ hurt is you.” Birdman danced around Boricio like a brain-damaged boxer.
He hadn’t seemed threatening at first, but Birdman did seem comfortable with the blade, and wasn’t making any of the rookie mistakes that most people did.
Boricio had to get in his head and force an error. He could run into the woods and hope the skinny fuck didn’t catch him — again. But Boricio wasn’t much of a runner.
“You give big daddy over there a reach around whenever he wants it, too?” Boricio pointed to Grizzly, “or do you just fight all of his fights because you’re his dumb little bitch?”
“Fuck you.” Birdman kept his eyes on Boricio, staring down his every move.
“Come on,” Boricio said, “you all know I didn’t rape Reese Witherpoon. Your buddy there’s just trying to protect his manhood because he can’t stand to think his cumbox wanted to dippity-doo-dah with a stranger in the bathroom. No reason for this to get any uglier.”
Birdman charged again.
Boricio dodged the slash, raising his elbow to block the attempt. He managed to seize Birdman’s wrist and twist the man’s hand, and the blade, back on him.
Boricio plunged the knife into his gut, and Birdman fell to the ground, eyes wide in shock. Boricio grabbed the blade and turned on Nose Ring.
Two down, one to go.
Nose Ring turned and took off back toward the station.
Oh no the fuck you don’t!
Boricio raced behind him, blade in hand, eager to end another hillbilly’s life before he could reach the truck where he would either flee or maybe grab a gun tucked in the glove box.
Nose Ring screamed as he fled. Boricio ran hard — he had to shut the fucker up, and quick. But Nose Ring was surprisingly fast and had a good ten yards on Boricio.
He was close to the convenience store, which may as well have been home base. Every gas station in the world had cameras these days; last thing Boricio needed was to be caught killing a fucker on YouTube. He’d been too careful over the years to get caught finishing off some redneck fuckface at a Stop n’ Go.
Boricio pushed himself harder, but couldn’t go faster. His body simply wasn’t up to the task after weeks of pouring petrol down his throat.
Nose Ring reached the road about twenty steps ahead of Boricio.
If he went toward the station, Boricio was screwed. He’d have to turn and run, head for the woods in another direction or something.
Instead, Nose Ring went for the truck, drawing keys from his pocket as he ran.
He hit the truck’s alarm, its angry, ugly, mechanical blurt screaming into the night, and surely alerting the cashier.
Fuck! Now that’s two more notches on the killing stick.
Nose Ring reached the truck, threw open the door, and jumped inside.
If he had a gun, Boricio was fucked.
Nose Ring leaned over, toward the glove compartment.
Shit.
Boricio raced faster, near certain he’d sprain something or pull up limp.
He reached the truck as Nose Ring grabbed a pistol from the glove compartment.
Boricio launched himself through the still-open door, jumped on the man, mercilessly attacking with the blade, so fast and frenzied that the asshole was nowhere close to aiming his weapon.
The gun fell to the floorboard as Boricio kept stabbing, screaming, venting three weeks’ worth of pent-up anger and turning the fucker to pulp.
For Boricio, time practically stopped as he plunged the blade repeatedly into the man’s stomach, his throat, and then into his face, each blow releasing more of the rage that had gathered like a storm inside him for weeks.
Boricio had almost forgotten how good it felt to kill.
Almost.
The last sound he wanted to hear tore him from the moment — a siren.
Boricio turned around and saw two sheriff’s cars, lights flashing and casting garish red and blue into the woods.
“Drop the weapon, put your hands on your head, and step back slowly,” said a voice over the car’s speaker.
A deputy was already out of one of the cars, with a rifle aimed at Boricio.
TO BE CONTINUED …
::Episode 26::
(SECOND EPISODE OF SEASON FIVE)
“I Know Why the Caged Wolfe Sings”
Nine
Peter Williams
Peter Williams sat in the ParkView Elementary School parking lot, staring at the front door, trying to stir his courage and get his ass out of the seat so he could do what had to be done.
Peter still couldn’t believe it had come to this.
A year ago everything was perfect. Then, just like that, it all started to crumble. First with the headaches that the doctors couldn’t understand. The migraines made him irritable and difficult to deal with, and no amount of pills or booze could get them to leave. At best, they barely dented the splintering pain.
Peter lost his job, then his friends. His wife and daughter right after that, both at once.
Funny how quickly the world turned on you when you lost your job and ability to earn. When you got sick with no relief. The final insult came two weeks ago when he received the restraining order, to stay away from his wife, Josie, and their daughter, Claire.
Something had clicked inside him.
Peter realized that he didn’t have to take this anymore.
He was the master of his fate, not his bitch wife or some fucking bullshit court document saying he had to stay a certain number of feet from his own flesh and blood.
Fuck that.
Pain stabbed his brain, again. He reached into the duffel, past the guns, and found pills to dull his roar.
Josie thought she could take his daughter and he’d sit back and take it? Like he’d let some piece of paper keep him from seeing his child — their child?
It was originally supposed to be a trial separation, a “breather” from one another. They were supposed to try and put things back together.
But that fucker, Mr. Montgomery, had started working in the classroom beside her. A good-looking guy who seemed like he was used to leather seats. Peter had seen the way his wife had looked at Montgomery when he went to pick up Claire from school for their weekends together.
Peter confronted her. She blew up, accused him of being crazy. Said she didn’t think he should be around their daughter anymore. She didn’t feel safe.
What the fuck?
Then that asshole, Montgomery, got into it with Peter, coming over, shoving his nose in their family business. Put his hand on Peter, said maybe he should leave before Peter did something he regretted.
Of course he exploded. Who wouldn’t have?
Peter decked the asshole fucking his wife. Then when Josie turned on him, yelling at him to leave her lover alone, Peter lost it.
He smacked her, letting anger overwhelm him.
A guy smacks his cheating wife one time in twelve years, and suddenly he’s a monster who can’t see his child?
For the first time it mad
e sense. The headaches weren’t a mystery illness. It was his subconscious picking up on his wife cheating with this asshole. He hadn’t seen Montgomery until after their separation, but the guy had shared a school with his wife for years. She’d probably been fucking him under Peter’s nose for a while.
The headaches showed him what his eyes refused to see.
The headaches said that he’d allowed this to happen. Invited a usurper to claim his family.
The only way to kill the headaches was for Peter to man up and take shit into his own hands.
He grabbed the duffel and weapons case, got out of the car, crossing beneath the flagpole, Old Glory whipping in the wind, and headed towards the school’s front doors.
It was time to make things right.
Ten
Mary Olson
Mary was sitting on the couch, doodling on her tablet, stabbing at creativity — she’d not finished a greeting card in forever — when a scream from the kitchen snapped her attention like a twig underfoot.
She jumped up and ran to find Paola on the ground, having another seizure.
Mary grabbed the pen and pad they kept on the counter for exactly this reason, dropped down beside her daughter, then cradled her head.
“It’s OK, I’m here.” Mary’s mouth went dry.
No matter how many times she saw Paola in this state, the terror never dimmed.
She wasn’t sure which was worse, how her daughter’s body was shaking, the stiffness of her limbs, or the way Paola’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. It all scared the hell out of Mary, even though it had happened five times since their return to Earth.
She’d nearly lost Paola twice to The Darkness. Two too many times for a mother.
Even though the island doctors said she was in perfect health, Mary felt like she was waiting for the inevitable drop of the other shoe. The, “Oh, yeah, one more thing … ” yet to come. Whether that meant The Darkness was on its way to claim her, for Paola to start aging again, or some other unforeseen tragedy, Mary couldn’t shake the feeling that they were all on borrowed time, no matter how hard she tried to tell herself that things were finally fine.
Paola’s fingers began searching up and down her body for something to write with, and on.
She handed her daughter the pen. Paola snatched it without acknowledgment, and Mary watched it swirl in a pantomime of violent writing.
Mary slipped the writing pad under the pen, straightened the paper, and stared as the ink arced in wide, scribbling strokes, then smaller ones as it grew fluid and words began to form.
The same words over and over:
Peter Williams
Peter Williams
Peter Williams
Peter Williams
Peter Williams
Peter Williams
Eleven
Peter Williams
Peter stepped through the school’s front entrance and approached the front counter where Nancy, the woman who’d worked the front desk forever, looked up and smiled. That expression peeled from her face like fading paint when she saw it was Peter.
“Hello, Mr. Williams. How can I help you?”
Peter kept the duffel hanging loosely from his shoulder strap, and the rifle case hanging behind his back. The duffel was unzipped, but looked closed to the casual observer.
“Hello, Nancy, I’m here to pick up my daughter.”
Nancy’s frown widened as she looked at her monitor.
“I don’t see anything on here about an early release.”
“Please,” Peter said, “I just need to see her.”
“I’m sorry,” Nancy said, “I’ll need to call your … wife.”
The hesitation between “your” and “wife” said it all. Everyone knew that he and Josie were finished. Probably knew that Josie was fucking Mr. Perfect, too.
Everyone knew that Peter was a joke. Hell, they probably laughed at him every day at lunch with his wife telling more stories about her stupid husband.
He could feel his nerves showing. Judging Nancy’s brow, wrinkling deep as she reached for the phone, she was likelier to call security than Josie.
Peter reached into his bag and pulled out the Colt M1911.
Peter braced himself for that moment, had planned it a million times in his head — the moment between when Nancy saw the gun and when he pulled the trigger. He had steeled himself to be ready, to have the courage to fire if necessary. He’d been worried the whole morning that he’d be unable. That he’d chicken out and maybe run back outside, get in his car, and flee. She’d call the cops, and they’d find him with a self-inflicted shot to the head a few miles from the school, a front-page story quickly relegated to a footnote, an afterthought, his entire life summed up as fate’s cruel joke.
But facing the moment, Peter didn’t flinch.
He squeezed the trigger. The first two shots missed, but the third, fourth, and fifth found Nancy in the head, chest, and left arm.
She dropped the phone, dead. Her body rolled back with the chair.
Screams erupted from nearby offices behind and to either side of the reception desk.
Peter marched toward his daughter’s classroom, taking shots at anyone who dared stand between himself and Claire.
A school resources officer was first to try, aiming a pistol at Peter and yelling for him to put down his gun.
Peter fired three rounds, until he was sure the man was dead. After reloading his Colt, Peter went over, scooped down, and retrieved the officer’s gun and dropped it into his duffel.
He shot as he walked, randomly into offices, not intending to kill anyone or caring if he did. He just wanted to keep them down and from even considering trying to stop him.
He continued his assault.
A man’s voice came over the intercom. “Attention, teachers, this is a lockdown. Make sure your doors are locked. This is not a drill. I repeat … ”
The man never finished.
Peter found him and blew his brains onto the window, skull fragments and brain matter splattering children’s drawings taped to the glass.
Peter kept moving.
As he walked down the main hall, he saw movement through windows. Panicked teachers telling students to get on the floor under their tables.
He passed them, not caring about any classroom except the one he was approaching — Claire’s. Second hall on the right and all the way at the end.
Movement behind him. Running.
Peter turned, firing without looking, not about to be taken by surprise.
A redheaded boy, maybe ten, was running in the opposite direction.
One of Peter’s shots caught him before he could pull the gun away. Poor kid was running away. Probably coming from the bathroom.
Screams were still climbing in volume.
Peter stopped, looked at the boy lying face down in the hall, crying as blood pooled from his chest. He swallowed, some part of him feeling horrible, but another stronger presence ordered him forward. The longer he waited, the harder it would be to get Claire out of school.
Surely, someone had already called the cops.
Peter aimed his gun at the back of the boy’s head, preparing to end his misery.
The trigger caught, jammed.
He tossed the gun aside, reached into his weapon case and pulled out the Colt M4 carbine.
“Please,” the boy cried, struggling to turn and face Peter. “Please, mister. Don’t kill me.”
Peter aimed down the sight, and for a moment was frozen watching the blood pool across the linoleum, unable to think what to do next.
The way the crimson spread reminded him of something he couldn’t remember. Something from another time, or … perhaps another life.
His headache stabbed him hard in the brain.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will the pain away.
Peter wanted to grab more pills, but had no seconds to waste.
What the hell was I doing?
He looked down at the kid,
forcing his memory.
Oh yeah.
He left the kid to his bleeding, turned on a heel, and kept marching toward Claire’s classroom.
The screams had settled. Peter imagined teachers hushing children as the Big Bad Wolf prowled the halls.
Little pig, little pig, let me in.
Peter reached Claire’s classroom and peeked in through the window in the door’s side.
Dozens of her fourth-graders were huddled under the tables.
What are they doing under their desks? Is there a fire drill?
He couldn’t see Claire, and wasn’t sure where she sat. There were too many kids all wearing the same-colored uniforms, huddled, faces buried.
He looked up and saw the teacher, behind her desk. Her eyes widened.
He tried the doorknob, surprised to find it locked.
Why would they lock the door in the middle of the day?
He vaguely remembered a man’s voice saying something about a lockdown. He was pretty sure his wife had once said they had to keep their doors locked all the time because you never knew when some crazy would come into the school.
He knocked on the door, “Mrs. Kray, it’s me, Mr. Williams. I’m here to pick up Claire.”
Peter could see her fucking around with her damned iPhone, but she didn’t answer.
Why’s she making calls in the middle of class? Doesn’t she have work to do?
Peter knocked louder.
The fucking bitch is ignoring me!
“Goddammit, open the fucking door!” he screamed, smashing his heel on the wood.
Peter looked down and remembered his rifle.
He raised it and took aim at the doorknob, putting five rounds into the fucker until it was gone.
Children screamed.
Why the hell are kids so damned screamy?
He reached into where the knob had been and yanked the door open.
Kids cowered on the floor, crying, which for a moment confused him. Then Peter realized that he was the reason they were crying.
