I could fuck them both at once.
The bastard stood right outside my door. The planks moaned beneath his frame as he became a fortress. Stiff. Unmoved. I imagined he was sweating. Wondering if I was awake. If I would make this easy, or hard.
I sat there thinking, too, full of hate and regret. I’d been careful, despite not being in my right mind at the time it all went down.
Due to being half out of my head on pain killers the last few days, the fucker trailed me home after I’d been discharged from the hospital. The bullet was removed from my arm, but the trouble was just getting started. I was pissed when I realized the same white car was driving past my house several times a day. Casing me. I checked my cameras and noted a big man with a mop of brown hair as the driver. I’d stepped into a hornet’s nest, and now, the worker bees were coming out to play. I hadn’t been out of the hospital for five damn days before I’d have to kill again.
Damn it.
Suddenly, he backed away from the door and made his way down the hall, the same direction from which he’d originally come. I wasn’t falling for that shit… He wanted to lure me out. In all of my thirty-four years on this planet, I ain’t been stupid in even one of them.
There was only one way to get out of things such as this, and that was to be smarter and faster—beat them at their own game. So I made a few dubious social media posts about clearing out a spot in need of repairs. An old rundown house I was renovating. My side gig. This was that house.
I made it clear I was going to be alone, working for days on end. People told me to take it easy, to rest. What happened to me had been on the news after all, and my family and friends were concerned about me laying carpet, painting, and tearing down walls so soon after being shot. It was all horseshit. This big fish took the bait. Here, there were no cameras, no neighbors, no gas stations, and the electricity was shoddy at best. The perfect spot to take someone out. Out in the middle of nowhere.
Now, here he was. In the house. Stalking about, with one mission, and one mission only: to kill me on sight.
Trouble had come knocking, and I braced myself for it, dressed in a suit of perspiration and ire. The stale odor of spilled beer filled the air, and my body was soaked in liquid adrenaline. Thoughts of my crazy life flashed through my mind, making me spiral out of control.
He padded toward the door once again. The knob of the bedroom door rattled but couldn’t completely turn as it was locked. I watched it jiggle a few times, with increasing pressure. I heard the deep breaths of frustration, and the exasperation spewing forth from the man with each passing moment. This was it. Someone was going to die tonight.
I counted in my head…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1.
BOOM!
The door burst open and there stood a hulking man, his silhouette black as the darkest of nights. He stood there for a second, as if expecting me to do something, and then, he charged me, gun in hand, firing away.
But it was too late.
“AHHHH!”
I ducked down as he tripped over the clear fishing wire I’d tied and secured from one end of the room to the other. He fell hard, hitting the floor like waves of thunder. Leaping off of the mattress like a jackrabbit with wings, I crashed down on him, jamming my knife into his neck, over and over, until my hand grew tired. He struggled to get up and wailed and screamed each time I sank that blade into his thick skin. His voice vibrated through me like an airplane taking off the runway. He could kiss the smooth landing goodbye.
Spurts of blood pumped from his throat in a fast, delirious stream. I pulled the string on an old marmalade-colored lamp, then stood over him. His small eyes began to roll in the back of his head, and that crimson puddle of blood turned into a lake, then a ruby red river right before my eyes. He shuddered as his body went into shock. I calmly stepped away, placed the knife down on the mattress, and grabbed my cigarette. Wasn’t much left.
I sat back down on that mattress, grabbed my now warm beer, and sipped it, savoring it like a fine wine. I smiled at him as he lay there shaking, dying, his blood all over my denim shirt, my fingers dripping with his essence.
“You shouldn’t uh come here. I suppose that’s crystal clear to you right now.” I sucked my teeth, shook my head, then gulped the rest of that beer down before tossing the bottle aside. “I’m supposed to be at home, resting, but instead, I’m playing a game of cat and mouse with you. I was just doing my job, man.” I shrugged. “I wasn’t there for none of the shit y’all were into. Try to turn a new leaf, and someone throws a whole gotdamn tree at ya.”