Purely Fiction: "What the rain washes away"

The rain pounds on the hood of the car as we sit there and all in unison stare at the front door of the house. We're on a hill, the bottom of it is starting to flood, it's been raining for days now. We know whats on the other side of the door, were dreading walking in. The note was ominous, angry, and the demands we're impossible. We don't have any money, we don't have small bills, all we have are guns, and the desire to take back whats ours. To me it's everything, the last thing I have left to care about, the only person I ever cared about. Jake jars me from my thoughts.

-Let's do this, it's only worse if we wait. My daughter is behind that door, and I'm done waiting.

Jake is about two inches taller than me standing at an intimidating six feet tall, about two hundred pounds of muscle. A manual laborer, steel worker his whole life. A five o'clock shadow thats been growing for three days and a desperate look in his eyes tells me he's jumpy. He's worried. He's angry.

His son sits in the back seat behind me in the back seat of the car. He's nervous, keeps loading and unloading the .38 Smith revolver he has. Clicking over and over again as if the next time he does it the chambers will be empty. I sit there, expressionless, smoking a cigarette and just waiting, my Beretta nestled in the small of my back, a mini-Glock strapped to my ankle. I have a Ka-Bar in my hand, I clean the dirt from under my nails as I watch the kid on the porch with an uzi under his coat just stand there and look at the rain as it falls. He's young, undisciplined, stupid. He should be checking cars, the perimeter. I watch, and I smoke, and I wait.

-Both of you need to calm down. We have to wait for the one on the porch to walk around the house again.

Just as I say that he starts walking off the Porch. I open the car door slowly and say something quietly over my shoulder.

-Wait till you see me to run across.

I duck out of the car, the rain falls in sheets on my black shirt. I feel my jeans begin to soak as I quietly slink to the corner of the house and tuck into a shadow, my boots making little noise as I hit the wet grass. I stand and wait.

I hear him walking close, I see him appear in front of me, rain is streaming down my face. I take a deep breath and lunge forward, one hand covering his mouth as I jerk him toward me and in a fluid, reflex like motion I draw the blade quickly across his throat. My hand unclamps and grabs the Uzi before he can, as he drops to his knees, a silent gurgling scream emanating from his lips as he falls to the ground. The rain washes the blood off my hands and the blade, I feel it seep through my clothes, warm and sticky. I shiver and take another deep breath, then I walk forward into the light and wave at the car.

We're all crouching next to the porch now. Jake's eyes light up as he sees the kid's body, he heaves in breath, I can tell his confidence just went up. His son is breathing quickly as he stares at the body, terror in his eyes. I whisper to him.

-You stay out here and watch in case they make it past us. Ok?

Relief is all over his face as I say that. I'm not about to make a killer out of this kid. Not tonight.
Me and Jake scurry onto the porch, the Baretta in my hand, a Colt .45 in his. We crouch on opposite sides of the door and I close my eyes for a moment.

I think about Julie and all the things she knows about me, and how much she loves me anyway. I think about what Father Alonzo said about love, and what we sacrifice to protect it. I think about what's expected of me. How little. I remember how I used to think all of this, my life, was just a bad dream I was waiting to wake up from before I met her. I think about what it will be like when she's gone.

Then I open my eyes and without a word I kick in the door, raise my gun, and drill a round into the head of the first person I see.

Chaos ensues. He goes down and I dive onto a nearby table and pull it down with me, using it as cover. There are three more of them in the room, spraying their guns from behind a couch at anything they can. Jake stays behind the door jamb and just fires wildly into the room. I pop up, fire a round through the couch, and drop to my stomach again. I hear something fall, a gun, then a body. I leap over the table this time, firing two round bursts at the couch, catching one of them in the shoulder and the other in the neck. These guys are thugs, they don't have experience, they don't do what I do for a living.

I stand and drop a clip, simultaneously slamming a fresh one home. I scan the room, nothing. Thats when I hear it, as Jake steps in there's a low mumble from a door, and it opens. A man holding a gun to Julie's temple appears, seemingly from the basement. Her hands are duct taped in front of her, her face is bruised and battered, her eyes meet mine and tear's instantly form. I train my sights on his head and wait. He speaks as he sees the barrel of the Baretta fix on one of his eyes.

-Well I'll take this as a sign you didn't get the money?

I tighten my grip.

-Look, give her to me and call it a day. My last offer, I'm either leaving here with her or you're leaving in a big black bag.

He smiles and puts his face close to hers, he licks her cheek and looks me dead in the eye.

-No one moves, no one moves and no one gets hurt. If no one opens their mouth again we may all walk out of here. Ok sweetie?

She just winces and nods, tears flowing down her face. I feel my chest tighten, I feel like dropping my gun and ripping him apart with my bare hands.

-The only reason I'm keeping you alive honey is because you're a bargaining chip..

He looks right back to me again, dead stare into my eyes.

-And so I have something pretty to look at while I tear what you love apart..

His gun swings from her head toward me, it never makes it all the way as I pull the trigger. About halfway a bullet tears through his forehead and blows the back of his skull onto the wall behind him. Julie screams and falls to the ground. Jake runs forward to grab her, I lower my gun to my left and fire three rounds into the guy I hit in the shoulder. He was trying to reload his Mac-10 as the other guy was swinging his gun forward. Jake and Julie jump again and Julie screams as I fire.

I look at Julie as her father cuts the duct tape from her hands, I'm covered in blood, my breathing slow and steady. She looks into my eyes and I know. I know she realizes it now, she sees me for what I've become. She knows she loves me, she loves a monster. This came so easily to me, I never flinched, never raised my voice, my hands don't shake. This was a slaughter, it was second nature to me.

Shotgun Homecoming

It was ten o'clock and the moonlight cascaded through the painted glass windows as I looked out into the church from the altar. My teeth were grinding against a toothpick stuck between my molars, it had been three days since I had a cigarette and I was really starting to feel it. I scratched the back of my neck and muttered low under my breath as I turned and walked into the office.

-It's time to go to the mainland for supplies.


I walked past the office and under the stairs in the back where there laid two large crates. My personal belongings. I lifted the lid to one of them and shuffled through the contents till I found a small, black tin box and opened. I took out about two thousand dollars in small, used bills. My life savings from a life past stuck inside a box along with everything else.
My life amounted to a box.
I'll end up in a box one day when it's finally over.
I shake the thought out of my head and turn as I shove the cash into my pocket, still chewing on the toothpick between my teeth when I stop dead in my tracks.
Choi stands in the doorway, her eyes to the ground, her hands clasped in front of her, looking as beautiful as I remembered her.
Fuck.

-Hey Jon, I was looking for you. I ummm.

She's stumbling over her words, I'm still shocked and my jaw gapes open and the toothpick falls from it onto the floor.

-I wanted to, to, thank you. Ya' know?

She looks up and her eyes meet mine. I'm a deer caught in the headlights.

-For going back to the mainland, for getting the thugs that took me..

She trails off and I snap out of it.
I try to regain some semblance of composure, to that I have to stop looking at her. I turn back to the crate and start digging, just barely mumbling over my shoulder.

-Someone hurt you, so I hurt them back. No one does that to a Righteous while I still draw breath, kiddo.

I cringe and call myself an idiot in my head, my pet name for her, kiddo.
I look over my shoulder at her and watch one of her kitten ears twitch. She's looking at the floor. There is something else she wants to say, but she can't seem to get it out.
I sigh and get up, looking back at her, God she's beautiful.

-What is it Choi? You have something else on your mind, I can tell.
-They'll be more of them, they'll be back. You don't know my mother like I do..

She trails off again. I can see a tear forming in the corner of her eye, she's remembering, she's dreading going back. I turn again to the crate and dig some more. I take out a few boxes. Numbers and names of guns on each, confiscated arms from when I was a cop, tools of the trade now. I open one and it's a sawed off double barrel twelve gauge. I crack the chamber and stare down the empty barrels as I speak nonchalantly.

-Well someone has to go back to mom and tell her you're staying then.

I snap it up and closed with a quick flick of the wrist and look back to her.

-I figure I'm going to the mainland anyway for smokes, maybe I'll pop in on mom and introduce myself.