clothes walked through a pool of light. The light bouncing off her body revealed a door leading into the back. Yeah, I was pretty sure they had dragged me through that door.
I made my way towards the door. The lights flared again. Everyone on the floor writhed and contorted in time with the music. Everyone except for me and the guy guarding the door to the back. When the light hit him again and I realized that he was a different species than the guys at the front door. Where they were trying to look tough, this guy was tough. His neck rippled with muscle and an old scar crossed his head and arced down towards his left eye. Earlier I would have been scared by him, but not now. I had realized how fragile the living are. This man had no idea what's coming. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him.
Then I remembered the feeling of a screwdriver twisting in my heart.
I walked up to him and whispered a question. He couldn’t hear me so he leaned in. I could feel warmth coming off his body as his lips drew close to my ear. With a wave of my hand, I slid the scalpel through his jugular. The cut was so sharp; I don't think he even felt it. Blood sprayed across the wall, but the wall was flat black. No one noticed. I grabbed the handle of his gun as it sat in his holster. As he fell to the floor, the pistol stayed in my hand.
I thought about dropping the scalpel but I didn’t. It was an emotional decision more than anything. Killing someone with a gun felt like it would be cheating. Too distant. Like watching someone die on a TV screen. I pulled the slide on the pistol and a bullet skittered across the floor. Guess there was one in the chamber already.
Another man, a bigger, dumber, angrier man would have kicked the door in and started blasting. A man would have to be full of life, to do such a thing.
I walked through and closed the door behind me. I felt a deadbolt and locked it. I didn’t want anything to interrupt my special night.
The private room was lined with black velvet curtains. The thumping of the music was now bearable. In the quiet, I heard the man with the snake tattoo laugh before I saw him. I will never forget that laugh. Then the high giggles of several women. To my left was a low table surrounded by women. Vlade lifted his head out of the middle. Everyone at the table was talking, excited. They all looked like assholes. If I had a life, I would have bet it the table was covered with cocaine.
Locked on to my target, I started walking towards the table. I felt that nothing could stop me now. My revenge was about to be claimed.
I raised the gun thinking that it was going to be like in the movies. You know, perfect, in slo-mo. Maybe he stands up and vibrates back and forth while the lead of my righteous retribution punches through his body. But that’s not the way it worked. I pulled the first shot down and to the left, hitting a blond girl who looked like a model. As she crumpled to the floor, the shrieking started. There was no slow motion. Everything sped up.
I didn’t feel bad for shooting the girl. But part of me felt like I should feel bad for shooting her. Whatever, I don’t want to shoot any more of them. I’m just after the guy who killed me. But now there were shrieking, scantily clad women running everywhere. I lost him in the chaos.
Something punched me right below the collarbone and spun me around. When I got control of myself, I saw that was another thug. He looked like he could have been Tweedledumbest’s cousin. Did they import the guys by the container load from darkest Obscuristan? I fired three more shots wildly. Then it hit me. What did I care? It’s wasn’t like the thug was going to kill me. I opened my arms wide and yelled at him, “C’mon!”
This scared the big man, in a strange way. Like he’d seen it before. I didn’t process at the time, but why else would he run? Sure, I looked pretty horrible, but he looked pretty hard himself. Like he didn’t have an
1796-1874 Agnes Strickland, 1794-1875 Elizabeth Strickland, Rosalie Kaufman