Beautiful Nightmare

by Johnna B

  “Do I need to run down his credentials to you? No kids, stupid hot . . . I mean, makes you wanna drink his bathwater. Again, no kids, and don’t let me forget . . . rich!” Sena couldn’t understand Vee sometimes. She knew women that would steal, kill, and destroy anything that got in their way over a man like that.

  “No, you don’t.” She was angry and didn’t know why.

  “Like I was saying, the man is gorgeous and, most importantly, rich! You tell me where you can find another man with that many good qualities and I’ll show you a red duck. Shit. Excuse my French, but they’d have to pry me off that dick with the Jaws of Life.”

  “Well, you fuck him then, and leave me the fuck alone about it!” She was massaging her temples while holding her head down.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” Sena could see the sudden change in her friend. “Girl! Are you bipolar or some shit?”

  Valencia smiled. “I’m sorry, girl,” she said, trying to smooth things out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. If I didn’t know you had a major buildup of coochie cobwebs, I would say you were a tremendous ho. Let’s go eat, retard.”

  Chapter 6

  The Reaper

  “Okay, so run this shit down to me again, like I’m a slow third-grader.” Kidd was not getting what happened, or, at least, it wasn’t registering. He was talking to his crew, which consisted of Moochie and Li’l Tony, minus Skillet. Everyone was waiting on Li’l Tony to finish with the details so the plan could go into motion.

  “Peep, he was over this skeeze’s house he met. I guess he finished what was he was doing. When he opened the door, four dudes were standing there with pistols pointed at him. They robbed him. My source says he didn’t put up a fight, and they had their faces covered, so they had no reason to shoot him. But my sixth sense is telling me that we need to go yoke this scandalous bitch up. I can feel the tingle of a setup.”

  Li’l Tony was their information guy. He knew everything and everybody. He knew shit before it hit Vine, Fox 2, NBC, and Channel 4. He kept his ear to streets at all times. Kidd paid him good money for the info he found out. Most of their jobs went smoothly because Li’l Tony was so precise, and, with Kidd and Moochie doing the dirty work, things usually went off without any kinks.

  “You get the address?” Kidd questioned ready to get started.

  “What’s my name?” Li’l Tony boasted.

  “I ain’t ask yo’ fucking name. I asked if you got the fucking address.”

  Everybody just sat looking, knowing how Kidd got when he was in kill mode, and everyone remained silent after that. He was calm and quiet, yet they could see that the caged beast within him was looking out at its prey as if he was remembering each of their faces, making sure to get every last one of them when he got loose.

  “Yeah, man.” He handed Kidd the paper, knowing he stuck his foot in his mouth. Kidd knew he had hurt the little pup’s feelings and he’d apologize later. There was no room for remorse at that moment.

  They loaded up in the hooptie, a broken-down 1994 Honda civic. There was no speaking because there was no need for words . . . only action. They were concentrating, and their minds were in the same place. They weren’t going to fuck this up. They were going to find this bitch to get to the bottom of everything, and, if need be, dead the broad.

  Kidd knew that once they got there, he was going to have to take total control of Moochie because the boy was a beast and very uncontrollable once he had his mind set on hurting somebody. Once he lost it, there was no turning back. Moochie was Kidd’s right hand and usually made sure that Kidd didn’t have to get his hands dirty. If there was a problem, Moochie never hesitated to make it go away, and he didn’t discriminate when it came to his brother. Kidd hated the fact that it was a woman they were going to see, but shit stunk, and, as far as they were concerned, she was the reason for the foul stench in the air.

  “This is her address right here,” Li’l Tony said.

  They pulled into a parking lot that had one way in and one way out. Everyone quickly searched for getaway routes, in case there was a need for a quick escape.

  * * *

  Shay-D was sitting in her living room thinking about how her life had made such a drastic change. She couldn’t help but let a lone tear fall. She had moved to a new city to get away from her horrid past. After shaking that thought, she began to think about Kaylin. What was she going to do now? She prayed all day that he would make it. With him being her new lifeline, he had promised to help her physically and emotionally. He knew all about her. She had told him everything about herself one night after she awoke from a nightmare. A year ago, she would have never thought she could have fallen in love in such a short time or, better yet, even been able to give another man her heart. She knew she loved him the first time she saw him.

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  “Who is it?”

  “Aye. Somebody hit your car,” she heard someone yell through the door.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding. It’s one thing after another.” She swung the door open and stared down the barrels of about six different guns. Instantly, she had to shit after seeing Moochie with a menacing scowl on his face and a big sawed-off double barrel pointed right at her right eye. If she hadn’t been raised in a brutal environment where guns were pulled and used as weapons on the regular, she probably would have lost all bowel control. “What’s going on? I don’t have any money.”

  “Look at this bitch. A pretty face will do it every time. Man’s biggest downfall will always be pussy.” The girl before them could put a few industry chicks to shame, but that alone wasn’t helping her in any way, shape, or form. “Bitch, just back up, and you might make it through this,” Moochie said while pushing her in the head with the gun.

  “Wha . . . What is this all about?” Her ass seemed to be getting heavier and heavier, like she was going to lose complete control of her bowels.

  “Fuck is you acting all scared for now? You wasn’t scared when yo’ scandalous ass was setting my boy up, now, was you?” Moochie could feel himself literally slobbering all over himself and spitting all in her face. As he pressed the gun to her head, he wanted to drive it through her skull like an electric screwdriver. His hand was itching, and his trigger finger was twitching to let loose.

  “What boy? Who I set up? I ain’t set nobody up. I don’t even know nobody in St. Louis. I know one person. I’ve only been here about five months.” She wasn’t lying. She had come down from Detroit, looking for a fresh start. She had met Skillet on her third day in St. Louis. “Shit! I could have stayed in the D for this shit.”

  “So some niggas just happened to know where you live and when to get at my boy? So all this shit is a big-ass coincidence? Man, fuck this shit. Bitch, tell me who the niggas is before I blow your fucking noodles out.” Moochie was now trying to choke the life out of her as he raised her body off the floor with one hand, without any resistance. His adrenaline was high, and he was ready to rip her fucking head off with his bare hands.

  “Let her go, man. Dead people don’t talk clearly,” Kidd said as he placed a calming hand on Moochie’s shoulder.

  After seeing Kidd’s point, he let go of her. Kidd hated that his boy got shot, but he also hated to see women get beat on. He knew that was going to happen, but he still had control over Moochie. Moochie backed up, still snarling at her menacingly.

  “Talk, bitch,” Moochie spat.

  “Are you all here about Kaylin?” she asked, looking at all of them.

  “Yeah,” Kidd said while everyone was looking at each other.

  “Listen. I met Kaylin like my third day here, at Sweetie Pies.”

  Everyone was still stuck on the fact that she was calling him by his real name. One, he hated his name. He thought it was a girl’s name, and, two, governments were not given out ’cause they were into too much shit. This meant he really liked her, which was not making the situation any better for her.

  “He’s one of the nicest guys I’v
e ever met in my life. Why would I set him up? I’d just told him I was pregnant, and he said that he would take care of us, that we would be all right and I had nothing to worry about.” She started crying all over again, unable to hold back the tears that were choking her.

  This hit them all like a thousand-pound boulder. Now, they were stuck. But she could still be lying, and Moochie didn’t seem to want to let up just yet. Bitches were liars and very conniving by nature in his opinion.

  “Okay, so what happened yesterday?” He folded his arms over his chest as he waited for her account of what happened.

  She looked at all of them. She wasn’t in the mood to go over what happened again, but by the looks on everyone’s face, it was either speak or die. And she wasn’t ready to go to the Upper Room just yet. She sighed heavily before speaking. “We talked about the baby and had our own little celebration. He said he was going to meet some guy named Moochie, his best friend, and that he couldn’t wait to tell him he was going to be a godfather.”

  Tears instantly stung Moochie’s eyes. The thought of losing his best friend made him want to vomit.

  Shay-D kept going. “He said we were all going to celebrate and that we would be having the first baby out of everyone. He knew you all would be happy to be uncles. Well, I assume you all are the crew, with y’all comin’ in here, pointing guns and shit. Anyway, he said that you would dig me as much as he did. Look. I would never do anything to hurt him. Do you know how hard it is to find a good man in this day and age?”

  She looked all of them square the eyes. Even though she was only twenty-two, she knew a good man when she saw one. “Anyway, when he left, I heard something vibrate, and it was one of his many phones. I went to catch him before he left, but, when I got to the door, I heard a commotion and swung the door open. Then, this guy pointed a gun at my head, but Kaylin jumped in front of me and told me to go back in the house. I didn’t want to, but then I ran and got the gun he gave me and called the police. By the time I got back, he was shot, and they wouldn’t let me go with him because we aren’t married, and I’m not a relative. And now he’s on blackout, and I can’t find out anything!” Shay-D, no longer able to control her breathing, started looking like she was hyperventilating.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Yeah. Who is Moochie?” He looked up.

  “Me.”

  “I figured as much. He said for you to be a good godfather to his seed.”

  * * *

  Kidd sat behind an extralarge red oak desk in his office, staring at the contents of the package that was delivered to his P.O. Box earlier that day. In it was the info about what he would require for his next job. It was a picture of a man and the things he had done for the past three weeks. Some were of him leaving his home in the morning, kissing his wife good-bye. Others were of him playing in the yard with his young son and daughter. But most were of him having in-depth conversations with detectives. He had been receiving these kinds of packages for about five years. It used to get to him to know he was about to take another life, but now his heart had grown cold to the screams and pleas of his victims. It had pained his heart once upon a time to know he was taking someone’s father, brother, or son away from them, but that was what his cards had dealt him in this game called life. He was a killer, a good killer at that, and had come to grips with that a long time ago. When his mother died, his heart went with her, and he replaced it with a piece of steel. At one point in his life, he had high aspirations of becoming an attorney, but, when his mother got sick, he took care of the home and Moochie. His plans to go away to college got swept away.

  Kidd’s mind switched gears, and thoughts of Valencia flooded his mental vision. He wanted her, and it was hard not calling or going to visit her because, indeed, he wanted to do everything in his power to get her be his rib. The possibility of what could be kept him hopeful, though.

  His phone ringing snapped him out of his optimistic thoughts of Valencia. He looked at the black oak grandfather clock that sat in the corner. It read 12:45 a.m. Sleep didn’t come naturally to him. The souls he had taken wouldn’t allow his mind to rest in peace.

  “What up with it?”

  “It’s ready,” the caller said.

  About thirty minutes later, Kidd sat in an abandoned building he owned, looking at four guys quaking in their seats. An feeling ominous was in the air, and death loomed in the atmosphere. It was damp and musky in the dark room. But the moonlight shined in just enough for everyone in attendance to see each other clearly. Kidd sat slumped in a metal chair with his head held slightly down with his hood pulled down over his head. They couldn’t see him, but he could see them clearly. Moochie, who was never too far from him, stood adjacent to him in the corner awaiting instructions.

  The special “guests” for the night had their mouths Gorilla glued shut, and their arms and legs were bound by thin razor wire. They had been badly beaten. He figured Moochie couldn’t wait to give them some sort of punishment for their blatant violation. No words had been spoken in about ten minutes. He just sat there, watching them watch him. He observed as their facial expressions flip-flopped from fear to anger over and over again. Looking at them made his blood boil, and his rage had gone to a whole new level. He sat a little longer because he had to get his emotions in check. These dudes had violated in a major way, and he wanted to know why. If he acted now, he would have just put a hole the size of a grapefruit in their heads and would have never found out why they had targeted his peoples. No, he wouldn’t be that easy on them.

  He wanted them to feel his pain and wrath. No one fucked with his family, and Skillet was like a brother to him, so he would make them pay in blood. Skillet had survived the attack, but what if he hadn’t? That thought alone made him jump into action, causing everyone else to become startled.

  “I’m not gon’ ask too many questions because I really don’t give a fuck why you did it. All that matters really is that it was done.” He looked into the eyes of the guys in front of him to see who was the most scared. He singled out the li’l bumpy-faced dude. His face looked horrible.

  He pointed at him. “Rip Pizza face’s lips apart,” he told Moochie.

  As Moochie went to do as he was told, he was thankful he had on gloves. He probably would have thrown up if he had to touch those puss-filled craters on the dude’s face with his bare hands.

  Kidd could see the hesitancy in Moochie and started laughing.

  “You think this shit funny?” Moochie scrunched up his face. “This nigga got herpes to the tenth power on his face,” he gritted, making Kidd laugh even harder. Even though there was laughter in the room, a dark feeling still loomed over them. “Nigga, you should have just killed yourself. How in the fuck you walking around looking like Freddy Krueger with acne?”

  He pulled the guy’s lips apart slowly, wanting him to feel every rip. That Gorilla glue was strong stuff. That was why they used it. They could hear his screams from his closed lips. The more they were slowly ripped opened, the louder the screams got. Blood was running down his face and neck. It felt like his lips were being ripped off. Technically, they actually were. While pressing down on his face, Moochie had to bust some bumps, so the dude also had puss running down his face—which only pissed Moochie off even more.

  Vomit rushed to the back of Moochie’s throat, and he had to breathe deeply to keep from spewing it out. “Man, if you wasn’t about to die, I would’ve helped you kill yo’ damn self.”

  Kidd chuckled a little more and then stopped. The dude thought the devil himself was standing in front of him. Moochie was usually the only one who got down and dirty, but today was special. This was personal, not business, so Kidd gladly jumped in on the action.

  “What made y’all pick my peoples?” Kidd questioned, but the dude tried to act hard and sit with a stone face. Kidd nodded his head and picked up his special bat. It was made from steel and had two three-inch spikes sticking out of it. It wasn’t in his hands for too long before he came down
hard on the guy’s knee, crushing it and causing the spikes to come out the other side of his knee.

  The sound of bones crushing was like a lullaby soothing Moochie’s aching heart. Unrecognizable screams resonated throughout the abandoned building. The blaring screams didn’t faze Moochie or Kidd, but it definitely got the other guys’ attention. They were all mumbling something, but the glue on their lips stopped any words from coming out.

  “Tape ’em up.” Kidd was tired of hearing his screams. He was getting on his nerves. “Nigga, it don’t hurt that bad. Man up, pussy,” Kidd spat.

  “Wait wait wait . . .” Pizza Face tried to talk, but Moochie put the tape over his mouth. He had blood, snot, and tears running down his face.

  “You didn’t want to talk then, so don’t go ruining the fun now. Shit! I’m just getting started.” He looked around. “Him!” Kidd pointed to the dude on the end.

  The young man sat like a statue, praying he would die quickly. His eyes moved from the spot that they were stuck on just in time to see the bat shatter his partner in crime’s knee wide open, and he never looked away again. His heart beat at rapid speeds. He’d done a lot of dirt in his life and never thought he would go out like this. During his life of robbery and vandalism, he figure he’d get gunned down, but this shit was like something out of a horror movie.

  “Okay, I’m gonna start this one a li’l different. What’s your name, dude? Pull ’em apart, Mooch,” Kidd instructed.

  The guy didn’t scream like his friend had, but you could see the pain in his eyes. He took a few seconds to compose himself before answering Kidd’s question. He was in shock, and it felt like someone had fire sitting on his lips. “What’s ya name, dude?” Kidd questioned again.

  “Kirvy,” the dude said as blood ran down his face.

  “What the fuck kind of name is ‘Kirvy’ for a nigga?” Moochie laughed.

  “Yo’ momma named me that when she saw my dick,” he started to laugh.

  Before anyone knew what happened, Kidd had slammed the spiked bat into the guy’s mouth, making his head snap back. The other three looked on in horror as broken teeth fell from his mouth and blood spilled from the back of his head where the spike had made a hole.