Mal took a Diagonal step to the left and swung his left hip backwards and slung his leg up until it connected with his head and slammed him to the ground.
“And stay down,” Mal said as he cleaned off the blood from the knife and the man stirred on the ground.
Need better lines, if I am going to say them out loud. What am I thinking? I don’t do this shit anymore, Mal thought.
Mal got on his bike and pulled up to the doorway of the Grocery store where Mr. Williams was standing there with a look on his face like I am sure some unknown had on his face when Aragorn ran towards the Blackgate against the enemies of Middle-earth.
If you are going to look at me like that Larry, you need to take me out to dinner first, Mal thought.
“May want to call the police, Larry,” Mal told Larry as his mid-90s frame sprang back to life and he ran back into the store.
Behind Mal the man got up to a knee and pulled a revolver out from his waistband. The man aimed at Mal with his revolver shaking in his right hand
“None of that is going to save you from a bullet,” The giant said.
Once Mal heard that, he shifted his leg to the side of his bike and pushed off, he fell to his left side and pulled his pistol from his leg holster, aiming down the sights.
In and out, Malcolm, He thought.
Mal breathed out and squeezed the trigger, hitting the man square in the chest. Mal put his left hand down struggled back to his feet without breaking line of sight on The Thug, who raised his revolver back at Mal.
“Drop it!” Mal shouted as The Thug continued to raise his Revolver.
Mal squeezed the trigger again into the Thug’s chest on the right side. The Thug held onto the revolver still as it fire straight into the ground and he raised it again. Mal lined up his Berretta to the Thug’s head and squeezed the trigger. His brains flopping all over the parking lot, the revolver clacked to the ground and Mal kicked it away.
Wasn’t exactly necessary to kick it away from him, it’s not like he’s going to get up and shoot back, Mal thought.
Mal heard the police sirens as they wailed off in the distance but Tim pulled up as the first person on the scene of the shooting.
“What just happened?” Tim asked.
“This guy came after me…it was odd. He was here trying to get money from some woman but quickly, he changed his sights to me,” Mal said as he racked back the pistol making the round exit the chamber and dropping the magazine out.
“Well, I know where you live so if there’s any questions I will send officers out to your house,” Tim said, “Get out of here.”
Mal didn’t ask twice on that one and hopped onto his bike and drove away. Mal didn’t agree with the rest of the world anymore, even when it made him feel good.
CHAPTER TWO
Nice day for some shooting
NEXT MORNING
Mal sat on his porch with a cup of Coffee in his hand, with Larry’s advice: he hadn’t actually drank anything last night. Guilt worked that way. Mal was sitting outside and checked his watch that said “0730”, as he sipped on his coffee.
“So excited Mr. Daniels!” Kyle, a lively fifteen year old, yelled as he ran down the hill.
Mal swallowed the rest of the coffee down his throat as he prepared to leave, leaning down to the kid. Kyle at fifteen wasn’t that young but, he was young enough to think he knows everything.
“Okay Kyle, you need to follow my exact rules,” Mal said, “firearms aren’t a toy like some people use them for, they aren’t a way to get social status or to intimidate others, Firearms are only to be used to hunt and protect yourself or others. Come with me,” Mal waved as he walked into his garage.
“Your parents have a locker like mine here because I gave them one when they arrived, until you are 18 you won’t be able to open it without one of them,” Mal pressed his thumb against the biometric lock and the closet popped open, Mal grabbed the FN MK22, a designated Marksman rifle out of the locker.
“Which one of these am I going to use?” Kyle asked pointing at the military style rifles, while also looking at everything in locker, reaching to touch the tan XM-24 assault rifle until his hand is caught by Mal.
“You aren’t ready for that yet, kiddo,” Mal said.
Mal grabbed the bolt action hunting rifle and handed him the rifle.
“Treat it as if it is loaded,” Mal said, “only point it at things you intend to kill.”
Mal and Kyle began walked out of the garage and headed towards the range he had set up on his farmland because the farmers who worked the land wouldn’t be working it again for another month. There was a natural hill that was about 200 feet tall and it was thick, so it would stop the bullets that passed through the targets. It was a warm day but not an Indiana summer hot. It was only 75 degrees and a nice breeze.
“Kyle, take a knee right here,” Mal said as he took a knee looking at the targets that he had set up last night.
Here is the moment that everyone remembers. The first time you shoot a gun, you either fall in love or you fear it for the rest of your life, Mal’s inner dialogue told him.
“Okay, Mr. Daniels.”
“Aim down your sights and look at the the middle target,” Mal said, “Do you see it?”
“I do,” Kyle said while breathing heavily.
“Now, breathe deeply and relax,” Mal said, “Aim at the smallest inner part of the circle and squeeze, don’t pull, the trigger.”
Kyle breathed in deeply and squeezed the trigger.
SNAP!
“It didn’t fire?” Kyle said while looking at the assembly of the rifle.
Mal actually laughed, something Kyle hadn’t seen very often
“Good! Now try it with a bullet,” Mal said as he pulled out a live round, “Rack back the bolt there and insert it, pointy side towards the target.”
Kyle racks the bullet into the receiver.
“Just repeat everything you just did,” Mal said with a smile.
This was something that Mal loved, he was an educator in a lot of ways in his past. Training hundreds of people how to fight in a way that also taught that their use of force and not using force was the most important factor. Mal noticed that his next door Teenager was breathing in differently than normal. Putting his hand on Kyle’s shoulder, Mal squeezed.
“You okay?” Mal asked.
Kyle’s mother didn’t like Malcolm Daniels but appreciated his charity. She said to him the first time they saw him that he should say away from Malcolm. Kyle remembered what she had said when he asked why.
“Men like him? The death follows them and I am sure there are some people on the other side of the wall who want him dead.” He remembered his mother saying but, Kyle didn’t agree.
Deep down, Kyle believed Malcom Daniels was a good man. Kyle relaxed, he had never seen anything in Malcolm took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.
BANG!
The bullet lanced down the range and hit the target in the red.
“Nice shot! Now let’s try hitting even farther away-” Mal said as he turned Dirt bikes were hopping over the gully onto Mal’s property, ridden by people carrying AK-74 Submachine guns.
Mal grabbed the stock of his DMR and swung around to find them buzzing over the ditch that separated his land from his neighbor to the north. The clap of AK-74 fire as they were used as Submachine guns when the stock was removed.
“Kyle, run back to your parents house, use my house as a way to get back safely,” Mal yelled as he looked down his scope and looked over to see Kyle looking at the moving bikers, “KYLE! GO!”
Kyle ran off as bullets dotted the ground between the ground between them and the riders. Mal concentrated on the riders and a familiar memory flashed into the forefront of his mind:
In a time sensitive situation, always make the hardest shot first, His old shooting instructors motto came to the forefront of Mal’s mind.
Mal searched down his sight as more bullets dropped dead hundreds of feet away from him, these
killers had made one mistake that you wouldn’t find anyone in Malcolm’s profession doing.
Don’t shoot at something you can’t hit, when they can hit you, He thought.
Mal saw the one rider attempting to flank him to the right, which was hands down the hardest shot of the bunch left as he would have to lead the bullet into the man.
Child’s play, Mal thought
Mal squeezed the trigger as the man’s neck disappeared and his head shot off into the distance. Mal pivoted back to the three approaching from the front as he felt the first bullet whiz close next to him for him to feel the pop of it whizzing through the air.
I need one still breathing, a voice recited in his mind.
Mal squeezed the trigger into the frame of the far left bike as the stock dissolved and crumpled into a pile and the driver fell off, rolling all the way back down the slight hill. Slowly he pivoted his rifle back across towards the last two drivers and shot rounds as the two riders crossed his line of sight. Both riders fell backwards off their bikes like there was some god, somewhere who just decided it was their time to go.
It was me though, I decided it was their time to go. The voice said to him
“Holy crap!” Kyle said from the corner of the house outside of Mal’s vision but not outside of his hearing.
“Did I stutter, Kyle?” Mal said.
The look on his face wasn’t the gentleman next door who was nice to him because he was a nice kid, it was the look of a killer. The affable, funny Malcolm Daniels wasn’t there, he was away right now.
Mal ejected his rifle magazine, knowing he hadn’t reloaded it since he last shot it and realized it was bone dry. He unslung strap over his shoulder and threw the Rifle towards his house, drawing his pistol from his leg holster.
Mal walked up on the gentleman whose bike had been shot out from under him as one of the bikes explodes behind Mal. Mal seemed uninterested in the others because he was sure they were all dead. Mal pressed his boot into the young man’s back as he tried to crawl back to his feet.
“Why are you here?” Mal asked.
“Someone told us to come here and kill you, these guys told me I had to come with them,” The voice said from the ground.
Mal took his boot off of his back as the person rolled over, it was just a kid. Couldn’t be older than 17 years old.
I have killed younger. Mal told himself.
Mal fired a bullet that would have shot through his brain if it wasn’t for the fact that it was two feet two the left. The boy squirmed in fear.
“Who?”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t the one who got the order, I am just the kid they grabbed to come with them.”
“This is who you choose to associate with? Assassins?”
“Easy for you to say, you have a choice,” the kid said, “my parents died in the war. I am on my fuckin’ own old man so go ahead and do me a favor. End it.”
Mal lowered his pistol.
“I don’t kill unarmed people and you aren’t armed. I am not an executioner, you got wrapped up in this and I am willing to let you go for a price.”
“And what would that be?”
“Two things. First, this client who hired your friends here, what did they call him?”
“Ares,” he said stuttering
Ares. Mal shook his head with his mouth open like he was trying to catch a fly.
“You’re sure it was Ares?”
“I am positive, why? Do you know him?’
Mal grabbed the boys arm, tilting up.
“Now the other part, teach you a lesson…” Mal said driving his knee through the elbow shattering it.
The boy screamed in pain.
“DO YOU KNOW HIM?!” Exclaimed the boy. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?”
Yeah, I know him: He’s my son.
CHAPTER THREE
This blows
One hour later
“What type of scumbag would send these idiots after you, of all people?” Tim asked as he sat down next to Mal on his front porch.
“One of them said it was Ares,” Mal retorted.
Tim’s brow furrows.
“Mal, you and him have your issues but I would absolutely be shocked if that was the case. He’s not going to try and kill you,” Tim said.
I think I could believe it.
“If I was going to launch an attack in this area, I would take me out of play,” Mal stated, “I bet all of your missing members from BANs in the area were higher level operatives?”
The look on Tim’s face was definitely a confirmation of Mal’s theory.
“They disappeared though, they weren’t killed as far as we know.”
“We don’t know what their game-plan was for me post mortem.”
“Wait, there’s four tracks three bodies and three bikes, don’t tell me you…”
Mal rolls his eyes at Tim, “He was just a fuckin’ kid who got caught up with these idiots. Didn’t even fire.”
“I see, that he left a blood trail…I am guessing?” Tim asked.
“Yes.” Mal stated.
“What was his name?
“I don’t know.”
I purposely didn’t ask because I knew that line of questioning was coming, I like to play the odds. Some kids who get involved in shit like this need to be scared straight. Meeting the grim reaper of three guys that you thought were really tough face-to-face with the possibility dying? About as scared straight as I can come up with.
“Well, what do you want to do about it?” Tim asked.
Mal mulled that over for a second.
“I don’t know, you tell me who they work for and I will make that decision when I talk to their boss.”
“Does that mean you’re back?”
“Temporarily maybe. Let’s go day-to-day for now.”
Mal got up and walked over to the garage, opening the door. He walked back over to the the locker and put his thumb on it. Grabbing the tan, futuristic rifle out of the locker and grabbing rounds.
“Shit just got serious huh? Pulling out the Nano-tech?”
“Just the XM-24,” Mal said.
His XM-24 assault rifle had a Nano-tech magazine chamber and stock which allowed it to take any ammo and adapt the stock to fire whatever was in the magazine by tightening and widening the stock.
“Got any of the good shit left?”
Mal grabbed five of the exploding rounds and lined them up on top of the locker before opening the other section of the locker, pulling out a tactical vest with a carrier system. He straps the vest around his body and then grabbed three magazines of ammunition for his rifle before grabbing the M-12 ammo and placing two more magazines for the pistol on his carrier for his vest. Attaching the clip to the back mounted carrier for the XM-24, it collapsed down into one-third of it’s actual size, he could press a button on his carrier system and the rifle would expand so he could grab it. Mal moved around like he was trying to check and see if it would be mobile enough.
“Well, I have some good people for you to pick from,” Tim said, “We can work them out and you can pick two of them…”
“I want Jace.”
“You can’t pick just some young kids?”
“I don’t want too many young kids,” Mal said, “I already hate most of them.”
“Except for the one next door?”
“Kyle’s fine.”
“Just fine?
“Most children make me want to rip out their spines and play jump rope, fine is a compliment,” Mal said.
Mal walked over to the humvee and pulled off the cover. He slipped off his carrier system and Tactical vest and laid it in the very back seat before looking at his shirt. It was plain gray shirt but he thought it wasn’t wise. He ran over to a black plastic container and pulled out a shirt that says, “SEAL team seven, Wolves Platoon”. He took off his shirt and the scars from the bullet wounds, stab wounds and miscellaneous injuries really read like a History of Malcolm Daniels and his pain.
“I will go w
ith you,” Tim said while sitting in the seat next to Mal.
“She may not be happy to see you,” Mal said.
“I am sure she won’t be happy to see me,” Tim said.
Mal couldn’t argue with that. Kyle ran out into the garage before Mal could get into the humvee, Kyle found himself very interested in Mal’s containers that his shirt came out of.
“What are you doing here, Kyle? I don’t know if you noticed but you were just shot at for being around me,” Mal said.
“You said you would give me one!” Kyle attempted to remind his elder.
Mal remembered the promise he had made to the one child he actually put up with. Mal walked over to a black garment bag in his supply closet and opened it, inside were multiple uniforms.
Why I brought these with me cross country, I will never know.
He reached in until he got to a small box in the back and pulled it out. Opening the box there was the gold Trident of a US Navy SEAL with an Eagle holding a pistol on top of it.
“There you go Kyle,” Mal said, “you earned it. Don’t lose it, there aren’t very many left.”
“Like us.” Tim retorted.
“Won’t let it leave my sight, I promise!” Kyle exclaimed as he scampered off.
“You sure you want to just give away one of those?” Tim asked.
Mal pulled the Humvee backwards out of the garage and turned left down the road to Jace’s house. Jace lived in Malcolm’s Great Grandmother’s old house, she lived there with her wife before she passed earlier last year after a long battle with cancer. Mal saw the large red barn and turned down the driveway, with a quarter of a mile left Mal stopped the Humvee.
You know the feeling when you know someone is watching you with a scope attached to a high power rifle? Yes, it’s the feeling I have now and yes, it’s scary.
“I know you are thinking that you would like the exercise but, there’s still a bit of a drive left,” Tim said.
“I am thinking of staying alive, you included,” Mal said as he opened the door and hopped out of the humvee.
The walk past what used to be a horse farm brought back tons of memories for Mal, his grandpa teaching him to ride a horse and his wedding reception dinner happening here. Mal got lost in his memories of his wedding before the red dot came across Mal’s chest. Mal raised his hands.
Monsters Page 2