The Sentence Story and Contest

[Candy 1st MRB]

C'mon guys, let's keep the story going!

[Druken]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

Edited December 12, 2013 by Candy 1st MRB

[Candy 1st MRB]

C'mon guys this story won't write itself!

[Druken]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

[Druken]

My bad... I am cool for the name change in the next post.

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

[Druken]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

[Candy 1st MRB]

C'mon guys! Only one week left, lets finish this part of the story!

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

[Druken]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Candy 1st MRB

[Candy 1st MRB]

C'mon Guys! Only 6 days left!

[Druken]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second.

[Gardner2]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second.

Sure enough I can hear the Sirens in the distance already, "beep beeep beep". "What the Hell?" I mutter those are some weird sirens "beep beeeep beep", when all of sudden I sit up straight and blink my eyes rapidly "beep beeeep beep", I look around my bedroom and slap the alarm clock off. Could that all have been a dream? It was so real, so vivid, my bed sheets are drenched with sweat, my room looks as though it has been hit by a tornado. I was obviously trashing around in my sleep.... but was it all a dream? Have I completed my mission I planned to set out to do already, or do I still have the removal and disposal of my clients problem to take care of.......

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second.

The desk was dry, just invoices and porno mags, but a strongbox on the shelf was wide open, undoubtedly because I had caught the Bull by surprise, revealing some cash, jewels, and a file folder, partially open from the struggle. I opened the folder, getting more and more perplexed with each document I read; there were ID’s, pictures, and a badge as I began to realize, to my horror, that the Bull was not what people thought he was, especially since his two thugs looked an awful like undercover cops.

This Post was entered after Gardner's, we were both entering at same time....I entered an alternate to his previous, this one is a response to Druken's (thoroughly confused?)

Edited December 20, 2013 by Candy 1st MRB

[Gardner2]

(What the eff ..? Is this Inception?

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

Sure enough I can hear the Sirens in the distance already, "beep beeep beep". "What the Hell?" I mutter those are some weird sirens "beep beeeep beep", when all of sudden I sit up straight and blink my eyes rapidly "beep beeeep beep", I look around my bedroom and slap the alarm clock off. Could that all have been a dream? It was so real, so vivid, my bed sheets are drenched with sweat, my room looks as though it has been hit by a tornado. I was obviously trashing around in my sleep.... but was it all a dream? Have I completed my mission I planned to set out to do already, or do I still have the removal and disposal of my clients problem to take care of.......

A remembrance of an event, of a dream? Come on guys, pay attention D:

We'll stick with Candy's last post, continue from there!)

"•The story can take any turn, go anywhere you wish, but must pertain, in some way, to the sentence(s) before yours."

[Candy 1st MRB]

Ok, what just happened? Did Gardner's post come in before mine or vice-versa? I am fine with taking mine out if Gardner was there first. Where's Brown? We need a decision....

Edit: I just looked again, Gardner was two minutes before me...I will remove mine if Brown wants me to....where is Brown anyway?

Edited December 18, 2013 by Candy 1st MRB

[Candy 1st MRB]

I am going to put a response to Gardner's last post since he got in two minutes before my last one, although his post is not to contest protocol, he has like 5 sentences, I thought it was supposed to be two per post. Anyway, we'll leave it to Brown to decide how to sort this all out....

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second.

Sure enough I can hear the Sirens in the distance already, "beep beeep beep". "What the Hell?" I mutter those are some weird sirens "beep beeeep beep", when all of sudden I sit up straight and blink my eyes rapidly "beep beeeep beep", I look around my bedroom and slap the alarm clock off. Could that all have been a dream? It was so real, so vivid, my bed sheets are drenched with sweat, my room looks as though it has been hit by a tornado. I was obviously trashing around in my sleep.... but was it all a dream? Have I completed my mission I planned to set out to do already, or do I still have the removal and disposal of my clients problem to take care of.......

I looked around my heap of an apartment with many different scenarios playing through in my fucked up brain, they told me it would be like this after my last tour, PTS is a real bitch they said. Glancing next to me I saw Marlene's perfect form, her long blonde hair and realized upon further inspection that she didn't have a scratch, she was as perfect as the day she was born, my whole paranoid fantasy about the Bull was just a lie.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Candy 1st MRB

[Candy 1st MRB]

C'mon guys, We're in the homestretch!

Edited December 20, 2013 by Candy 1st MRB

[Druken]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second.

Sure enough I can hear the Sirens in the distance already, "beep beeep beep". "What the Hell?" I mutter those are some weird sirens "beep beeeep beep", when all of sudden I sit up straight and blink my eyes rapidly "beep beeeep beep", I look around my bedroom and slap the alarm clock off. Could that all have been a dream? It was so real, so vivid, my bed sheets are drenched with sweat, my room looks as though it has been hit by a tornado. I was obviously trashing around in my sleep.... but was it all a dream? Have I completed my mission I planned to set out to do already, or do I still have the removal and disposal of my clients problem to take care of.......

I looked around my heap of an apartment with many different scenarios playing through in my fucked up brain, they told me it would be like this after my last tour, PTS is a real bitch they said. Glancing next to me I saw Marlene's perfect form, her long blonde hair and realized upon further inspection that she didn't have a scratch, she was as perfect as the day she was born, my whole paranoid fantasy about the Bull was just a lie.

I got out of bed and pulled on my cleanest dirty shirt, I then walked out to the kitchen to grab myself a beer and a smoke, flip through the stations for a little while. I was just about to light up my smoke when I hear a loud crash come from out on the street, the sounds of screams and twisting metal, I sprint for the window.

[Candy 1st MRB]

I should have known it would be a bitch to get the body out of the trunk, she even had told me it would, but there was no way for me to anticipate the bags ripping and subsequently spilling their contents all over the side of the highway. I peered down the miles of road ahead of me and saw no encroaching lights, but upon glancing the other way, I was greeted with a set of headlights rapidly approaching, maybe 5 miles out, their shine illuminating an unmistakable set of red and blue reflections from the roof of the car.

I fell to the ground and started pushing the chunks of meat beneath the car, surprised at how quickly the flesh and meat had grown cold and hard, a body once capable of so much movement and grace one minute only to be reduced to cumbersome bricks of waste the next. I could hear the roar of the engine and stood up, using my heel to skirt the remaining pieces beneath the bumper and forcing the warmest smile I could muster under the conditions.

As I stood in eager anticipation a blinding light appeared from one side of the vehicle, forcing me to shield my eyes, partially obscuring the individual that emerged. As I peered beneath my hand I could see the silhouette of a man creeping toward me with his right hand sliding toward his waistline.

"Hello" I said to the approaching man, "Nice evening, I am just putting away my tire jack" hoping to distract him as I slightly angle my body to cover my reach for a weapon. Is that a second person in the vehicle behind the glare of the lights, will I be able to take them both out if it comes to that.

My hand grazed over the slick metal of my .44 S&W Special nuzzled tight within the interior of the trunk, fingers wrapping its polished rosewood grip, a gift from the wife on our 15th wedding anniversary. I heard the words "Everything...", and "allright"... while all the possible scenarios played out in front of me, and choosing the one future where I did not immediately die or spend the rest of my life in jail, I yanked the revolver from its holster, spinning around and leveling the weapon's sights to the head of the police officer before me.

It was so fluid, he never saw it coming; hell it was like I had just taken a single breath and my .44 S&W was 6 rounds liter. My heart pounded against my breast as I confirmed the kill of the officer, one shot clean through his right cheek bone, then I slowly approached the vehicle to confirm my other 5 rounds found their intended target.

I glanced about nervously, checking for any oncoming traffic and contemplating how I would dispose of yet another body. As images of possible consequences of my actions raced through my mind, I reached down and grabbed the policeman's limp body and dragged it off the road, covering it with a layer of brush while an idea began to form in my mind, a way to take care of all my problems in one fell swoop.

The first body I disposed of much like the second, hurrying myself; The last thing I wanted was another set of headlights to come down the road. With a few hurried steps, I cleared the brush, almost tripping over the cop's foot on my way past. As I got to the door and pulled it open, I glanced over my shoulder one last time to assure everything looked some semblance of the word normal.

"Normal........."

I never liked my apartment, but on three "jobs" a week what could I expect. As I stared at the ceiling, I decided that if I ever managed to get out of here I would never paint anything "slate gray". It reminded me too much of my own life, too much of....I closed my eyes trying to keep the colors out. As memories of the previous night filled my head, like a cup with too much water, I seemed to forget as much as I remembered.

There was budding light from between the shades, beams creeping along my floor with suspended dust looking like salt shakers in space, and my thoughts turned to her. She could be the death of me, or even worse, I of her, but she had been right about the trunk, so it is possible that a third outcome exists, one of a prolonged and beautiful mutual destruction, like two typhoons colliding, taking out everyone along the way.

My contemplation was interrupted by a loud banging at my front door accompanied by muffled shouts. As I reluctantly slid out of bed I approached the door, each step bringing greater clarity to the voice’s purpose and a greater understanding of problems to come.

I slipped my .44 special behind my back and into the waist of my pants as I peered through the peep hole in my front door. It was Miss. Crookshanks, the land lady, stumbling around with her hair in rollers and a pure gin martini in hand, half burned cigarette hanging out of her mouth; that woman wouldn't even need a reason to call the cops on one of her tenants, so I un-bolted the door and prepared myself.

I opened the door with one hand and rubbed my eye with the other, still groggy from just awakening, and I said to her, "This ain't groovy on my dreams at all lady, you're bein' a drag on my dreams." I then placed myself between the door and the worn, cracked frame of my apartment to keep her sights on me and not the several cans of FallsCity beer strewn about the chintzy apartment.

As the old crow began to speak I immediately tuned her out as painful memories began to seep out of my brain; memories of a darkened room, an angry man barking in my face, her. Through every painful recollection I kept thinking of her shape, her face, her lips; culminating into an emotional climax just as I felt a sharp pain on my cheek.

Her sharp, hoarse voice snapped me back into reality as she took a puff of her cigarette while her hand came across my face, "Are ya even listenin' to me ya birdbrain?!" Something seemed to snap inside me as I grew constantly tired of her bickering and noxious personality; I invited her in by saying, "Ms. Crookshanks, as your company is always 18 karat, I would like to take a minute of your time to put in a complaint about the cat upstairs .."

I stepped aside and she waltzed in, her tattered pink robe billowing behind her as a cloud of Aveeno and liquor molested my nostrils. I shut the door and turned to watch her survey the room, her brow furrowed and her head jerking back and forth, up to the ceiling and back down to the floor, like an angry pigeon that just stepped in its own shit.

As she continued to move forward through the mass of crushed beer cans and pizza boxes, my first instinct was to silence her, quick and quiet, like I had done so many times before. As angry thoughts ran through my mind, the night’s events kept repeating over and over in my mind, and the possible consequences of offing this old bag were not worth the rewards.

I shut and bolted the door behind her quietly and slowly took the knife off of my kitchen counter as I approached her from behind, holding the knife behind my leg until the last moment. "Please forgive the mess doll, it's been a pretty bad week at my gig and I've been kind of a spaz lately .." The gun was too loud and I wanted her to see it coming, to see the hate in my eyes for all the annoyance and negativity she'd given me over the years..

Even after all these years, the adrenaline still gets pumping, and everything that proceeded was reduced to slow motion as I brought the knife up past her shoulder and under her chin, turning it up a bit more then needed so that the severed carotid artery would have to fight gravity to empty and maybe she would bleed out a bit slower, possibly even be able to staunch it by compressing the folds of peeling skin and fat she called a neck, and I could lecture her on the dirt and grime of her world instead of mine, the broken faucet in my goddamn bathroom for the past month, and finally, that fucking cat upstairs. The blade rose softly to her skin like a conductor's baton at the start of his favorite composure, the muscles from my forearm up to my triceps tensed, and just as it began to make contact and peel through the thin epidermis, signaling the shrill first note of Death's pitch black violin, an F-sharp enough that those initial nerves would split without ever sending a distress signal, a familiar and unmistakable perfume wafted in from outside the front door and stopped the music dead.

Damn .. perfect timing Marlene.. I untucked my partially buttoned shirt to cover the .44 S&W and straightened slightly at the cool touch of the dark steel slide against my bare skin. Hearing the knock at the door I quickly spun the knife to lay flat against the inside of my wrist and forearm before Ms. Crookshanks could even react to the small paperlike cut.

She turned to me with a stunned expression for a moment and said "You might live in filth but getting fresh with me won't get you anywhere." Then in her gin induced hallucination she cracks a coy smile through those grimy teeth, then grabs my package and says "But we can always work something out if you are a little short on rent." I really better answer that, she looks at me with a confused expression just as knock comes to the door.

I turned away, cracking a sheepish smile and trying to forget the utter revulsion of her nauseating touch and focused on what would be the sure pleasure of Marlene’s company as I unlatched and opened the door. Keeping one eye in the back of my head, I stared at Marlene’s partially lit silhouette and heard soft wimpering from her as she stepped into the light, revealing a blackish-blue mark around her left eye socket.

"What in the name of god happened to here?" said Miss Crookshanks, I replied "I think you should go now Miss Crook shanks" as I walked her right out of my apartment and slammed the door behind her. Marlene just stood there sobbing, "come in darling and have a seat", I cleared the beer cans and news papers from my couch so she would have a place to sit; I took her hand as I lifted her chin to look at the shiner "who did this to you darling?"

Marlene turned away with a quick jerk of her chin and covered her damaged face with her hands as I wrapped my left arm around her and cuddled her head on my left shoulder. As thoughts went through my mind of who could have done this and will I be adding another body to my tally for the evening, the familiar sound of a text message from an unknown caller came through on my cell phone and said “No more fuck ups or next time we deliver her in pieces.”

I looked at my phone perplexed by the statement then a great sensation came over me, as though a cold hand had gripped my heart. All I could think was it had to be that Russian prick Vladimir and his crew, after all this is his MO, that thieving, junkie, pimp; "Marlene did the people who do this to you have any markings you can think of? like tattoos or scars?".

“It was dark, they put a bag over my head and hustled me into a car” poured from her ruby lips as she turned her baby blues toward me “then they locked me in a dark room for hours.” The hate began to crescendo as she elaborated further about her kidnapping, "A big guy punched me and said "Tell your boyfriend he better quit fuckin' up"" as my rage hit a fever pitch I thought "Vlad had gone too far this time, there would be a reckoning."

I put Marlene to bed and gave her something to help her sleep, she had been through enough today all ready. As she dozed off I started to formulate my plan, when I started to think about the description Marlene gave, "a big guy", Vlad was small and quick, more of a thinker who had soldiers do his work for him and the best way to get at the boss is by climbing the ladder; It must have been Ivan the Bull, Vlad's biggest and meanest, he picked up his bull tattoo while in prison in St. Petersburg.

The “Bull” had a nasty reputation that dated back to his time in the pen with his tendency to rush his opponents and slam them against the wall with his oversized frame. I devised a way to surprise the thug, who had been earning his keep one bloody fight after another for Vlad since before he was released from that hellhole of a prison; but it would take precise timing and a really big knife.

I packed up my disguise with my combat knife and tucked Marlene safely into bed then slipped out of my apartment and walked down the block to this run down dodge, the thing had been parked here all month and hasn't moved once, I figure whoever owned it wouldn't notice it missing. Took me all of a couple minutes to get the dodge to turn over, what was I thinking? I have had some pretty ridiculous plans in the past but this one, this was something special.

The old beater coughed and wheezed like that bitch of a landlady as I approached one the Bull’s favorite hangouts in the Russian part of town at the corner of 10th and Glouster. The old building had been turned into a bar, with drinks and broads in front, gambling and distribution in the back, and one hulking prick running the joint, a prick that was going to fall hard.

I sat in my car across the street from the joint with frost still on my windshield and my heater barely working; these winters seemed to be getting colder and colder .. or was it just me? I'd need to be careful with this and think this through because there would be no way I could get to the back with Ivan, especially with him knowing who I am and after what he did to Marlene.

My plan was dependent on some information I had forced out of a city planner I had taken care of a few years ago, information about a system of tunnels built in this area during the twenties, tunnels that would make for an early escape from the speakeasy and the G-men. There was an access tunnel that led from the adjacent building to the bar, burrowing under the street and exiting right under the Bull’s office, he will never know what hit him.

I could already feel the adrenaline starting to kick in, my fingers tingling, hands slightly shaking. I reached over to the glovebox to grab my trusty .44 and opened the drivers side door, allowing the brisk, chilled air to swaddle my body.

I jimmied the lock on the adjacent building, a dilapidated old thrift store that had been abandoned and boarded up long ago, and silently crept toward the stairs leading down to the basement. The tunnel was right where I was told it would be, and as I moved the crates away from the entrance flashes of what this thug had done to Marlene pierced my brain, this guy was gonna die.

When I made it to the other end of tunnel I could all ready hear voices, lucky for me it was Ivan and two of Vlad's dealers; I pushed against the entrance to see if I could open it, but something was blocking it from the other side. So it was on to plan "b", I pulled on my disguise, the city planer I took care of happened to have city worker coveralls and a hard hat, I slipped my .44 and knife into my small tool belt; This disguise might just buy me enough time to get in there.

I rapped on the door two times and heard scurried rustling from the other side when a deep voice retorted “Da? Who is it? as the light through the hole in the door was extinguished. . As I recognized Ivan’s gruff voice the rage inside me was unleashed, thinking “This was going to be messy, no way to go silent on this one” and drew my .44 from the toolbox saying “Someone you shouldn’t fuck with” and unloaded into the peephole.

With the chambers dry I ditched my empty rounds in my pocket and reloaded in what I thought to be record time, then I kicked in the door to find 2 bodies slumped together with Ivan barely alive crawling towards the desk. The blood lust screamed in my ears louder than it ever had before, I pulled my knife and walked over to Ivan placing the blade against his neck, I then whispered in is ear "you lucky prick, you don't deserve to go this easy." and with that I let the son of a bitch bleed; I frantically ruffle through the desk looking for any information I can, someone definitely heard those shots and will be here any second.

Sure enough I can hear the Sirens in the distance already, "beep beeep beep". "What the Hell?" I mutter those are some weird sirens "beep beeeep beep", when all of sudden I sit up straight and blink my eyes rapidly "beep beeeep beep", I look around my bedroom and slap the alarm clock off. Could that all have been a dream? It was so real, so vivid, my bed sheets are drenched with sweat, my room looks as though it has been hit by a tornado. I was obviously trashing around in my sleep.... but was it all a dream? Have I completed my mission I planned to set out to do already, or do I still have the removal and disposal of my clients problem to take care of.......

I looked around my heap of an apartment with many different scenarios playing through in my fucked up brain, they told me it would be like this after my last tour, PTS is a real bitch they said. Glancing next to me I saw Marlene's perfect form, her long blonde hair and realized upon further inspection that she didn't have a scratch, she was as perfect as the day she was born, my whole paranoid fantasy about the Bull was just a lie.

I got out of bed and pulled on my cleanest dirty shirt, I then walked out to the kitchen to grab myself a beer and a smoke, flip through the stations for a little while. I was just about to light up my smoke when I hear a loud crash come from out on the street, the sounds of screams and twisting metal, I sprint for the window.

As I panned across the length of the windows before me, a scene of utter chaos unfolded, a painful memory of days past began to take form, one I had kept buried deep in my subconscious. A guy in a pickup truck had run the light, struck several cars and then ran directly into a power transformer across the road, resulting in an explosion that was all too familiar in my mind, a similar scene long ago when I first experienced these strange dreams.

[T. Brown 1st MRB]

Final day! EEEEeek I haven't read anything for the past few days, been real busy, so I decided to keep suspense until it is over. Here's how it will work:

Seeing as how I'll probably be too busy to go through this all today or tomorrow, you guys can keep posting all you want, but only posts before midnight tonight (however the forums decide it; I'm not sure if it is local time to whoever is posting, or centralized so it is all the same, but if the former, EST...latter, whatever it is then) will be counted towards the prizesssss. I've got two other writers who will go through all the posts and assign point values to each submission, then I'll do the same and we'll add 'em up and whoever gets the most points wins. Then I'll count up all the posts and we'll see what that leaves us. I'll either post here, or make a new post...I dunno.

We've got about 12 hours though; lets see what happens :>