Warpath

In through the nose, feel the weight of the air as it settles at the very bottom of my lungs. Burns. Out through my pursed lips, cracked and tired from snarling.

He is in here. In one of these shitters. The athletic, nude women in the shower room wouldn’t be still scrubbing their exhausted, tight little bodies if that skeezy pervert ran through. It figures that I get this fantasy in real life and there’s someone I have to kill to distract me from it.

Gun aimed midpoint on the first door on the left, I try it. Swings in, nothing. The one on the right, empty. Next one on the left, empty. Next one on the right? Locked. There were no feet below the door when I checked.

Giddy as a schoolgirl. Trigger finger excited, mind’s eye squeezed down to a tight reticle, air going in and out in harmony with the river of death I wade out into, thoughts clear now. This is it.

My back pressed to the stall behind me, I knock on the locked one. No answer. “Hello? Hola? Housekeeping. Servicio de limpieza.” Nothing. “Any rapists hiding in there?”

No answer.

“Okay. I’ll try the next one—” And he bursts out of the one where the wo

man’s feet were, his gun firing. I dart down, draw a bead. No go. Locked stall, a decoy. I dive into the next one up. Drop for a split second. See his feet scramble. No plan beyond jumping out and shooting. No doubt, he’s all out of lead now. I come out, bull rush. The stall with the woman’s feet whisks by in an instant, an unconscious woman plopped down on the stool with her eyes closed, head against the wall. He tries to run.

“You zigged when you should have zagged, motherfucker.” And in an instant, I have my mitts on him. Awesome.

We go down in a crumple. I drop a haymaker and lay open his nose in one gush of crimson. He scrambles like a turtle on its back with one miracle foothold. Shoves out, clawing for purchase on the tile. I lunge, get him. Slide just enough to feel wet. Shower room. Athletic, nude women, scrubbing their exhausted, tight little bodies until that shot rang out. He and I land at their feet. Their wet and naked feet.

Double awesome.

“Don’t mind us, ladies,” I say, smirking as I grab his throat. “Please, keep cleaning yourselves.”

They scream, cram into one creamy bunch in a corner. Rapist is bleeding everywhere, gouging at my face. I draw back, slug him again. His jaw pops under my fist and his eyes turn bright red. He kicks, grazes my balls. Goes for my gun in the holster. One hand to guard it. I twist. He twists opposite; gets both legs free. I take the finger on my gun, yank hard enough to feel it give under my tension. He screams. Kicks again. My hand chops at his throat. Not a good one. Thumb to his eye. A little better. We’re getting fucking soaked. He spasms, kicks and wiggles. Gets my knee. I slip off. His hand comes free, tries to bolt for it. I grab an ankle, yank. He tumbles forward, hits the showerhead tower. Knocks a bunch of soap and shampoo to the floor. Whishing around in the water, I pull on his ankle, get to my knees. Throw a punch. Lands poorly. He rakes at my face with a safety razor. I get a glimpse of a bunch of armpit whiskers stuck between the blades at it comes by my face. I thrust up at his jaw with my palm. The thing is already swollen twice its size and my strike makes him yelp like a puppy getting neutered awake.

I grab the first shower bottle at my feet. See something about pumice rub and exfoliating and figure it has little grains of something in it. Great.

I squeeze the bottle and a jet of it sprays across the room like this were the world’s most ludicrous money shot. Hits him right in the face. But more importantly, his eyes. He grabs at them.

I stand up, trying to look as cool as I can with all the naked women. Of course, they’ve all beat feet. I would have thought they’d stick around to watch an uber-male like myself decimate a sex predator, but oh well. The cop in me says cuff him—not that I carry handcuffs anymore—and wait for back up. PD must be through the front door now.

The rapist writhes; splashing shower water in his face before he blinks too much and the scrubby-grains rub through his eyeballs. Get to his brain. Exfoliate that. I decide one more punch for the road should do it.

Grab him by the collar. Up on his feet. Defeated. “An ugly end to such a cocky piece of shit like you,” I say. He’s got nothing. He’s a million miles away down a hole from where we met on the street, him so confident that the situation was his to toy with. Funny how folks like the rapist—those who have never been tested; given a false sense of security—have their worlds shattered with one good punch. Conquered. Even his hands fall away, complete in their domination. Rear back, wind up.

And then the smear floods down. I think it’s shower water and try to mentally brush it away. But it’s not going anywhere. Big Fry smear. A single trickle cascades, drawing behind it a million more like a freight train. A horse-drawn stampede on the backs of bulls done up in a psychedelic rainbow. Brain-frying. Gut-wrenching. I taste bile as the edges of my vision tingle with that certain special fuck you I get every time my noggin goes rogue. My mind numb. Muscles jelly. A swirl of mixing pastels before me, splashing my world and all it ever knew with a food fight of color. I try to swing. Just knock him out and we can be buddies lying here on the floor. No swing will come. I want it want it need it demand it but nothing.

I barely feel it as I hit the floor, shower water draining into my open, twitching mouth. The colors go dark. My brain goes dark. I go dark.

When I come to, I hear cops shouting back near the stalls. The rapist, he’s long gone.

32

Spent four hours with Saint Ansgar’s finest.

One in handcuffs until Clevenger showed up and argued that I was not the rapist. His blood washed down the drain. His trail of destruction was hastily tied together. They missed some parts but they’ll connect the dots eventually. Written statement. Interviewed on a dash cam in the back of a squad car.

The chief is through the fucking roof. Shots fired, car wrecks, chases. The chief himself comes up to the scene. Sees me. Storms up.

“Well fuck me at a brisk trot, Richard Dean Fucking Buckner,” he says. The chief spent four years as an Army drill sergeant and it shows. Gets up in my face, trying to lean in the way they do with recruits. Command hand, the whole nine yards. “How is it a guy like you isn’t even a cop anymore and you’re still here at my crime scene with your dick imprint everywhere I look?”

“Because I was working this case—”

“You weren’t working shit!” His command hand goes right up to my head and I’m two seconds away from breaking those fingers. He can plume his feathers all he wants; his actual bite is dull. I know I still have teeth. “You were working on destroying my city! Anything else you accomplished was ancillary!”

“Out of every cop standing here, only one of ’em had this guy in his possession.”

The chief coughs a mocking laugh. “All right, Dirty Harry, where is the motherfucker then?” He holds up his hands and tours the area, looking lost and confused. “Please, display your great catch. Turn him over to me and I’ll give you the best citizen’s arrest award I can get past the city council.”