PROLOGUE
There
were three of them in the house that night, all dressed in black and wearing
ski masks... Their orders were simple:
slaughter everyone in the house. Make
sure they die, nothing less would be acceptable. There were two men who were under the command
of the third. The first two men were
Rudy Davenport and Terrell Jackson – low-level thugs who occasionally dabbled
in drug sales. The third man was
referred to simply as ‘Boss’; they were not to know his real name. All things considered, they preferred it that
way. Considering what they were planning
to do, they wanted to know as little as possible about the people who hired
them and the man they were now reporting to.
They had been paid ten thousand dollars cash, and as a result they were
not inclined to ask questions.
Rudy and Terrell followed the Boss
into the bedroom on the first floor where they found a sleeping couple. Rudy was unnerved by the Boss. He didn’t seem to make a single sound as they
moved through the house. Floorboards
didn’t creak under his feet and papers did not rustle as he passed by
them. It was like he was a ghost. He also didn’t carry a gun. He had a long silver dagger instead of the Glock
complete with laser sight and silencer that Rudy himself carried. He had a feeling that the Boss liked being up
close and personal with his prey, liked the connection you could only get with
a knife. It was surpassed only by the
feeling you got with bare hands.
And teeth.
They went over to the sleeping
couple on the bed. The Boss had a wide
smile across his lips and his teeth shone in the limited light of the
bedroom. He walked over to the side of
the bed where the man was gently snoring and looped his rope around the man’s
wrists and tied him to the bedpost. Then
he handcuffed the man’s ankles around the post at the foot of the bed.
“Hey, asshole, wake up,” he
whispered and lightly slapped the man’s face.
“Huh? Wuzzat?” he said. Then he tried to move. His eyes opened wide when he couldn’t move
and he struggled against his bonds.
“What the fuck is going on?” he screamed.
“Mark?” The woman was awake. Rudy and Terrell grabbed her. She struggled but the two men were powerful
and she had no chance of getting away.
“You may not know why we’re here,
but that doesn’t matter anyway. The only
thing that matters is you’re both going to die.
Normally we would have to be quiet and hurry up, but unfortunately for
you we have plenty of time. I haven’t decided who will be first. I have a few ideas. I’ve thought about cutting your eyes from
your head so you have to listen to your wife scream and you have to imagine
what we’re doing to her. But then you
wouldn’t be able to watch her die, so you can see the difficult position I’m
in.”
“Why are you doing this? Please, just take whatever you want. We haven’t seen your faces!” Mark said.
The woman was blubbering.
“We’re not here for your stuff,
Mark. We’re here for the sole purpose of
killing you and your wife and then when we’re done we’ll go upstairs, get your
son and give him a choice. He can either
join mommy and daddy in Heaven, or he can join us and fulfill his destiny the
way he ought to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told you it doesn’t matter why
we’re here. All that matters is that
this is going to happen. And there is
nothing you can do about it. You’re
going to die. Your wife will die. And your son…well that’s up to him,” the Boss
said with a smile.
The Boss took off his coat and
revealed his muscular arms. He was
wearing gloves and holding his knife. He
walked over to the woman and grabbed her by the hair. He told Rudy and Terrell to move so he could
enjoy himself. He sliced her nightgown
off and pulled her over in front of Mark.
He slid the knife gently against her body. He started at her right hip and began drawing
a thin line of blood with the incredibly sharp knife. He cut across her stomach and up her sternum
between her breasts. She was begging and
pleading and felt her bladder let go and hot urine flowed down her legs and
made a puddle on the floor. The Boss was
disgusted. He jammed the knife into her
windpipe and she started coughing. He
yanked the knife sideways, tearing the flesh of her throat. He was scarcely able to contain himself as
her arterial spray covered her husband.
Mark screamed, tears running down his face. The Boss let go of the woman and let her drop
to the floor where she coughed and wheezed as her life flowed onto the carpet
around her.
The Boss stuck the knife into Mark’s
stomach. He screamed even louder as the
Boss pulled the blade towards himself. A hole like a grotesque mouth opened up in
his side, Boss used the flat side of the blade next, spilling Mark’s entrails
onto the floor on top of his wife. Mark’s
screams rapidly faded and became less intense as he slowly died. The Boss turned to Rudy and Terrell, who were
shocked into silence. They were just
looking at the two dead people and the Boss, who was covered in their blood and
guts. The Boss had a huge grin on his
face.
“What the fuck?” Terrell whispered.
The Boss’ grin faded. There was a
hint of movement that Rudy detected and the next thing he knew Terrell had the
hilt of the knife protruding from his chest.
Terrell looked at it, as if to say ‘Who put this here?’ turned to look at Rudy and then slowly slumped to the floor.
“Looks like old Terrell didn’t quite
have the stomach for this job. Well he
shouldn’t have taken it,” the Boss said as he shook his head. “But not you, right Rudy?”
“N-no Boss. I can handle it.”
“Excellent!” the Boss said, his
happy grin returning. “Then by all means
help yourself to Terrell’s share. You’ll
find it in his jacket pocket.”
Rudy had no problem rifling through
the dead man’s jacket to find the stack of cash. While he was busy the Boss looked over and
saw the kid standing in the doorway. He
had what looked like a slingshot in his hand.
The cup was drawn back and pointed at the Boss. At first he thought Oh how cute! but
there was something in the kid’s eyes.
Something that wiped the grin off the Boss’ face. Rudy looked up and saw the Boss standing
still.
“What’s the matter, Boss? Isn’t that the kid you wanted? Want me to grab him?”
“Shut up!” he hissed. Something wasn’t right. The kid was supposed to be docile, weak. The kid standing in the doorway was
neither. The Boss changed tactics. “Why don’t you put that down before someone
gets hurt, huh kid?”
The kid responded by pulling the cup
back a little further. He had a look of
focused fury and rage in his blazing blue eyes.
He looked straight into the Boss’ eyes.
He refused to look at his parents’ mangled corpses. The Boss opened his mouth to say something
and took a step forward at the same time.
The kid let go of the cup and a fraction of a second after the Boss
heard the twangg! sound of the
elastic he felt a burning pain across his face.
He put his hand to his face and howled in anger. Whatever the kid had shot at him had not only
torn through his ski mask but it ripped his face open from the left corner of
his mouth to his hairline. His eye was
obliterated and the shredded flap of his cheek hung grotesquely against his
neck. The Boss dropped to his knees in
agony and intense hatred filled his mind.
He wanted nothing more than to tear the kid apart with his bare hands.
Rudy was saying something but it
sounded like he was at the top of a deep well calling down to the Boss. No one had ever hurt him like that before.
He looked at Rudy, who was pointing wildly in the direction of where the
kid was standing. Fearing, for the first
time in his life that he would be attacked and hurt again, he raised up his
right hand (the one not pressed against the wound that was pouring even more
blood onto the floor, adding to Mark’s and his wife’s) and braced for more pain. It didn’t come. He opened his eyes.
The child was gone.
