Warpath

“I’ll dime you out in a heartbeat.”

I casually stroll over. He braces as he sees the lit cigarette in my right hand. Never sees the left hook coming.

I back up. Take a drag. “You won’t be diming out anybody with that broken mouth.”

He’s on his back rolling around, his entire jaw in pieces, held as shards inside his skin. Sounds like he’s choking but I bet it’s only another tooth. He hacks and gags, clears his airway.

“Your deviance has led you here. Your thirst for hurting others has led you here. Your filth has led you here. And now, I’m making sure it gets stomped out. I didn’t ask you to butcher the lives of so many helpless people. So light the match before they get here.”

He just rolls, lays on his side.

I kneel down, whisper, “You’ve heard of the Carnivore Messiahs? You’ve heard of their rivals? How they die? They rape men, you know. Prison justice. They do things that would make BTK poop his britches. And for a serial killer who took his time with children, that’s saying something.”

I stand, walk away. Turn my back as I near the stairs. “Leave the matches alone, I don’t care. Take your chances.”

I hear him, ever so slightly, inch against his conscience across the floor. The slide of wet fabric across concrete. Trepidatious fingers, scrawling gasoline swirls and lines until those fingertips touch the matchbook. He starts to cry, and all I hear are the whimpers and pleadings of so many women under his bulk, their underwear being torn at until they rest limp around their ankles. Tears wetting their bloody cheeks. Finding that far-off place where they can be away from what’s happening.

All I hear is Petticoat’s wife as she beseeches her unconscious husband to defend her. All I hear is Molly trying to scratch her way through the t

runk lid, wanting to know why Graham actually went down when he was bashed over the head. All I hear is the muffled voices of however many other women this guy has destroyed throughout his hideous career.

Then I hear the match head flare up, whoosh, and heat play against my back. I hear screaming. Real screaming. Accepting his fate but not the agony of it, apparently. I count to five and pick up the bucket of water I brought with me, turn around and throw it on him.

The flames hiss and go back to hell, sizzling out to nothing and the rapist is here with me, lobster red and every nerve exposed.

But alive.

I think back to Willibald’s WWII story about the French woman. I remember how she just grasped her groin and moaned like she had been set on fire for a minute and put out. Left to suffer until Death swooped in with its talons. Just never came. Not that way, anyhow.

“Death is coming, perv,” I say, rolling my head on my shoulders. “Death is coming.”

44

“Bye, Ursa. They’ll be here soon.”

And I roll down the stairs, leave his squeaking mewls up on the third floor. I hit the second landing and the phone rings.

I look out a window, see three ghetto sleds roll up; queefs pile out like they were clowns in the center ring. “Yo, Thuggie?”

One guy stalks around like he owns the place. All the others give him a wide birth but circle him like he was radiating their source of power. “Where you at, mother fucka? I’ma get my hands on you—”

“Right here, sexy boy.” And I fire four rounds. The night comes to life with sparks as I shoot to piss them off.

They drop and swing their barrels up and around, looking for something to zero in on. I give them the other two rounds, leaving a muzzle flash in the night sky.

They see it, send lead my way. Good girls. I duck, find the first floor as quiet as a two hundred sixty pound mouse. Tiptoe out a window, barrel across the space between the two buildings in a wide arc. While they’re staring at the empty air near the muzzle flash I’m entering the next house.

I hit a room, brace against a wall and pop my cylinder. Reload. Go up the stairs. Keep it low, scan the shadows until I see them again, racing around across the way, their silhouettes darker against a dark background inside. Heads bobbing as their idiotic, blind rage takes them up the stairs in a manner that makes me yearn to be at the top with a machine gun. This is what fish in a barrel look like.

Tactics out the window. Revenge’s handicapped little brother has removed his safety helmet and taken the wheel. I see them pour onto the second floor and I bide my time while they search and toss over every shadow and dust mote looking for that guy who jumped their crew.

And then, the rapist’s pathetic mewling must catch their ears. I hear them explode in acknowledgements; “There’s that moutha fucka!” “Upstairs! Go! Go!” “Cap his ass!”

Head on up, fellas. And they do. Nuts to butts they charge up there, spilling onto the third floor. I see the last guy nearly trip over himself getting up there, zooming around. I think about Ursa, about all those times he called me Dick. If there’s one thing I insist upon, it’s that no one calls me Dick. No one.

I take a deep breath and put the front sight on the box with the gel explosive in it. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Surprise.

My barrel barks into the still night and the third floor comes alive with all the fury of the sun.