Catharsis (Book 1)

by D. Andrew Campbell

  This night is about to get a lot more interesting.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Listening to the sound of Leroy's retreating footsteps, I consider my options on what I want to do next. These two houses will need to be retired from all future operations, and I want to destroy the supply of drugs next door. My presence here needs to be a painful one that will make an impression on the goons higher up the drug trade pay scale. I have full faith in my ability to take out the remaining two men next door, and I don't think I'll have too many problems coming up with a creative way to dispose of the drugs (A simple fire in an empty and supposed-to-be-abandoned house should prevent the place from being used in the future and destroy their supply.). But what about the cash that they have stored here? What do I do with that?

  My first thought is to just burn it, also. Drug money is tainted money, and I have no desire to interact with it. But at the same time, money is money. And money is something I am desperately running low on right now. A healthy influx of cash would help me fund my own efforts until I get caught (And most likely killed. But at least I'll be doing something positive until then. Better to die making a difference in the world rather than live in obscurity.), and I can put it to good use against these people.

  Plus, if I decide later that the money is too morally tainted to use, then I can always just burn it and move on. But it will be awfully hard to do this the other way around. If I burn it first, then I can’t really change my mind later.

  That last argument helps me make up my mind (A mind that is getting increasingly clouded and hard to reign in. Something is definitely "off".), and I begin moving to track down the stash of cash located somewhere in this dilapidated house.

  The search is a surprisingly short one (Apparently battling against drug-addled idiots has its benefits.) as my nose leads me straight to the bills arranged in mountainous piles on the kitchen table (I wasn't exactly sure what scent I was tracking, but once I isolated the ripe stench of sweat-infused cloth it became considerably easier. Used money has a very distinct - and nauseating - smell.). The piles of thin, green rectangles arranged on the broken-down wooden kitchen table are impressive. I must have caught them at just the right time. At least judging from the amount of money on the table, I am hoping this is a large amount for them to have. If this mountain of bills is the result of only a small day in the business, then I might be up against a bigger enterprise than I thought.

  Many of the bills are taped together in small bundles (Not the fancy 'marked' white tape that you see at banks denoting how much is in a stack, though. These guys were going low-class with just masking tape. Crude, but effective.) so that should make those piles easier to transport, but not all of them are so carefully bundled. The vast majority of the bills are just loose and piled.

  "Well, that's annoying," I say quietly to the table containing my sudden monetary windfall. "How am I supposed to get all of that out of here?"

  Scooping it up in my arms and just running off with it seems a bit awkward, so I'm going to need something to carry it in. A quick scan of the kitchen doesn't come up with much aside from a few grease-stained carryout bags from local fast food joints (Drugs and unhealthy eating habits? Raise your hand if you're surprised.) and a mostly filled garbage bag pushed into the corner of the room.

  The fast food bags could be plausible, but they don't look like they'll carry much without spilling. Plus their paper doesn't look very strong, and with my luck they'll just tear open as I'm running home. The garbage bag could work, but I'd prefer to avoid emptying it of its contents if at all possible (Something tells me my heightened senses would go haywire as soon as they came into contact with anything in that charcoal-colored sack of filth.).

  The trash bag does give me an idea, though. Trash bags are like roaches: wherever you find one there must be more. You can't really purchase just a single bag at the store, so unless these guys were responsible enough to bring the bag from home (Not likely given what I've experienced with them so far.) then there's a good chance a partially used roll is sitting around here somewhere.

  Rejuvenated with the idea, I begin opening drawers and cabinets in the kitchen with a driven determination. But two minutes later, I realize my one time of opening the cabinets during my search is more times than these guys had ever done it. Every door I tore open contained little more than dust, mouse droppings and the occasional shattered glass or cup.

  Turning around slowly and weighing the likelihood of how well tossing the bills into an empty drawer and just pulling it out of the wall would work, I notice something I had skipped over previously: a closed door next to the kitchen table. I had been so consumed with the openings in front of me, that I never even turned around to look for a pantry or closet.

  "Worth a check," I say as I cross the room and rip the door open in impatience. And then I stop and stare. It is a closet. A relatively small one with not much in it aside from three objects piled neatly on the floor: large, tattered and beaten gym bags that appear to be full to bulging with something. And what they're filled with reeks of old cloth and sweat. Regardless of the smell coming from the bags, I know I'm not going to find old basketball clothes in there.

  Gingerly, I unzip the top bag and peek inside. Stacks of stinky, green bills wrapped in masking tape greet me. Lots of stacks. Lots and lots of stacks. If all three bags contain the same thing (And I have every reason to suspect they would.), then the amount of money in these bags handily dwarves the paltry amount stacked on the table behind me. Two things strike me at the same time and both fill me with awe. First is that this is a lot of money. More money than I ever thought would be possible to find in this place. And the second is that this is most definitely a larger operation than I anticipated. A much, much larger operation. I'm really beginning to think that might not be such a good thing.

  Dragging the bags out of the closet, I realize they are much heavier than I thought they would be. I'll be able to carry them and still most likely be able to run, but it will be exhausting. The idea of me burning through whatever energy is keeping my hunger at bay scares me a little bit. Taking these bags might be a wee bit of the ol' robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul concept: using the energy now will get me home, but then I'll immediately need to go out again to refuel. It's going to be a tough balance, but it's one I'm willing to risk right now.

  With the three bags pulled to the middle of the room, I begin looking for an easy exit to the place. The back door and large kitchen window have been boarded over to prevent anyone from trying to get into the house that way (I'm guessing these guys weren't too worried about a fire code inspection as this place never would have passed. The front door and the upstairs windows are the only unobstructed ways into the place, and something tells me the latter were never intended to be actually used.), but the boards they used don't look that intimidating from here.

  I consider just taking my bags and going out the front door, but two thoughts slow me down: I don't want to exit in a way that can be anticipated in case the guys from the other house are watching, and I don't want to leave all the money on the table for the owners to come back and repossess. I want to make the money disappear. It'd be nice to take it with me, but I doubt I could fit it into any of the three duffel bugs. Burning it is a nice second option to make sure they can't make use of it, but there's not an easy way to go about doing that that won't involve the entire house going up in flames (I don't want to kill the three guys upstairs regardless of what they've done, and I don't have time to go back and drag them out.) Instead I light on option number three: tossing the money outside and letting the wind blow it away and return it to the neighborhood. Yup, that idea has a nice ring to it.

  Grabbing the first two by four crossing the boarded up door, I brace my feet and pull. With a groaning squink the board pops free as the nails release their tenuous hold on the door frame. Thank goodness they decided to use nails instead of screws (I'm guessing it was the idea of the muscle-heads to use feats of strength to secure
the door as opposed to feats of intelligence.), or the process would have been much more involved. As it is the door is uncovered in under a minute, and I lean my ear to the door to listen for any sounds from the other side.

  "Nothing," I whisper and smile. "Perfect."

  Moving as quickly and quietly as I can, I drag the kitchen table over to the door and spend a few moments separating the few piles of bundled bills that remain on it. Once I've opened all the packets I can find (and slipped a few into my jean’s pockets for safe-keeping), I open the door and tilt the table towards it letting the bills spill out. The night wind quickly grabs the green slips of papery cloth and whips them away in spiraling tornadoes of what appear to be tree leaves that dropped too early.

  Dropping the table back into place, I grab the gym bags and sidestep my way through the door and into the scattered piles of cash. Luckily, the kitchen door is set back enough that there is no clear view of the second house. I'm undetected for the moment which is good.

  Randomly selecting a dark, un-illuminated house within view of the backdoor - but blocked from the other house - I run towards it so that I can find a place to safely drop my bags. A low-growing hedge of bushes near the corner of the house's property makes for a secluded enough drop site.

  With my new bags squirreled away in the bushes, I turn my attention towards my final job for the night.

  "Let's make this fast," I say to the few bills that flap past me in the wind, and then I collapse as a wave of nausea slams into my stomach and rips me from my feet.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  "Uhhnn," the moan slips between my pursed lips as shooting pains tear through my abdomen. The pain is not tinged with the sharp bite of the hunger that has been plaguing me. This is something new. There is something inside me that isn't happy, and it's decided to make my life miserable. The pain from my stomach spins up my body and dances across my spinal column until it finds my skull and skates around it until it can settle into my temples.

  Clutching my knees to my chest, I curl into a ball and just wait for the pain to ease. At least I hope it will ease. If it continues like this unabated, then I'm going to end up being one of the easiest fools these criminals have ever had to track down. Breathing shallowly through my mouth, I do my best to close out as much stimuli as I can.

  Scrunching my eyes tightly shut, I see nothing.

  Breathing through my mouth, I smell nothing.

  Allowing my brain to focus on nothing but the release of the pain, I hear nothing.

  Slowly the curled fist of pain that has taken root deep within me begins to unfurl and lose its grip on me. I continue to remain as motionless as possible as I feel the long snake of tension slither back down my spine and fade away into nothingness.

  My breath comes back to me through my nose, and I taste the air around me. Nothing out of the ordinary. Cracking my eyes open, I see the muted light of the darkened back yard and the swirling cones of paper dispersing themselves as the wind changes direction.

  "It's over," I say out loud - but still in a voice just above a whisper - in a vain hope that by saying it it must be true.

  Digging my fingers into the sparse tufts of grass around me, I balance myself as best as I can until I manage to get to a standing position. The memory of the pain still haunts me, but aside from its lingering impression I appear to be clear of whatever attacked me.

  A deep desire to just pick up the bags and run home grips me as my subconscious gives its most valiant effort to convince me of the folly of heading back towards more people. Especially angry people with guns. It's a good argument, and it's a strong enough one to shake my resolve for a few moments. But then the thought of Marie comes back, and what the addiction did to her and her body. If I leave now, then I'm leaving that house full of drugs behind. Drugs that could be used by someone else. Correction. Drugs that will be used by someone else. I need to find them and destroy them. I need to do that, and then I can go home and rest. If another attack hits me while I'm getting rid of this supply, then so be it. Some things are just worth dying for, and for me this is one of them.

  Before I can change my mind (Or allow my mind to attempt to change itself.), I take off for the far house and its forbidden treasure at a slow jog. I don't have a plan. Not even close to the barest outline of one, except to get inside the house and destroy whatever they have in there.

  My body's attack on me earlier has me worried about over-exerting myself. I have no idea if that is what caused the onset or not, but I figure the less I use my reserved strength the better. And that means no scaling the outside of the house to look for a window. Nope. Time for a much more direct approach.

  Embracing that thought, I aim for the only entrance into the house that makes sense: the front door.

  Stepping onto the weakly illuminated and crumbling front stoop, I pull in several lungfuls of the night air to give me a sense of anyone who may be around and waiting for me outside of my vision. I pick up nothing out of the ordinary, and mentally cross my fingers that my senses are still as sharp as they were before (Whatever happened to me while I was in the backyard has really shaken my confidence. I don't like it.).

  Staring at the reinforced, solid wood door of this two-story brown house, it hits me that getting in might not be as easy as I hoped. I'm going to need to get them to open the door for me as I don't think it's very likely I'm going to just punch through this one on my own. But how am I going to get them to open said door?

  Looking down at myself and my dirty jeans and black hoodie, I realize I'm going about this the wrong way. I need to make them want to open the door for me. In order to do that, I need to give them something to open the door for. And with that, the first taste of a plan slips into my gullet. It's not a plan I'm proud of, but it's one that might actually be effective. And it's a plan that goes in the completely opposite direction of almost all my recent escapades.

  As much as I hate to do what I'm about to do (And I try not to even think about how ashamed my mom and

  grandmother would be of me.), it strikes me as the most efficient route to success.

  That is, I think to myself. If it even works. It's just as likely to simply make me easier to kill.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Knocking on the door of the house, I say as loudly as I can in my most feminine voice, "Hey, can you all open up for me in there?"

  Waiting for the response from within, I look down at myself for a quick check of my hurried makeover. I had pulled off my hooded sweatshirt and dropped it on the corner of the porch out of view of the door so that I was just wearing a white tank top. Unfortunately, over the last two weeks most of the baby fat I'd been carrying since puberty had melted off, so my top was far from skin tight and slinky (This was the opposite of what I had hoped when I first thought up the plan.). I had to do some quick knotting of the fabric in back in order to pull it tighter and accentuate what few curves I have. My thick hair has been mostly ratty and tangled since I've been living in the warehouse, but pulling my fingers through it I tried to make it as close to "tousled" as possible (I figure ‘tousled’ is attractive, but ‘unkempt’ is far from it. Luckily, I fully believe it's a fine line between the two.).

  I don't really think it's possible for me to pull off sexy right now (Or ever really, but I had to go with whatever plan had the best chance.), but I'll settle for intriguing. Intriguing might at least get them to open the door. And an open door is all my plan needs.

  Puckering my lips into the sweetest smile I can muster (I’ve never been one to adopt the shy ingénue route at school. In the past I've mocked girls who acted like this, but I have watched them in classes enough to feel like I can pull off a passable resemblance. At least for a few moments.), I blink my eyes slowly while trying to make them look as big and doe-like as I can (I even, briefly, consider slowly twirling my back toe on the ground to reenact the pose I've seen in countless Japanese manga comics, but that seems like overkill...and awkward. Well, at least more awkward than what I'm al
ready doing.).

  Boredom begins to mix with my anxiety as the wait stretches out. It shouldn't take them this long to reach the front door from anywhere in this house. It simply isn't that big of a place.

  Reaching out, I push the little illuminated doorbell button and listen to it echo throughout the house. The sound is muffled by the heavy door, but my senses pick it up readily. Just as the sound fades, I become aware of the presence of someone on the other side of the door. I can't pick up much about them, aside from it being a guy.

  "Go away," he thunders from the far side of the door. "We're closed for the night."

  His voice has a level of finality to it that I don't like at all. He's dismissing me, and I can't have that happen. I strain to find a way to keep his attention on me.

  "It's ok," I mewl at him softly (yet with as much volume as I can muster to make sure my words penetrate the door). "I'm cool. You can let me in. I won't be long."

  With my abilities (Can I think of them as powers yet?) fritzing out on me, I'm not sure how to convince this guy to open the door for me. If I could just push him into doing it, it would save some time and effort. But I don't know if that will cause me to pass out or drop to the ground like last time, and I can't afford to have either happen right here. So I'm stuck using old school methods. Unfortunately, I'm not well versed in crack house etiquette or what arguments to ply them with.

  "You ain't cool, witch (OK, that's not the word he used, but you get the idea.)," his measured voice comes across evenly. He's bored with me. "So don't tell me ya are. Go 'way."

  I have to find another way to appeal to him (And I need to do it quickly), and only one idea comes to mind.

  "Please forgive me, mother," I whisper quietly to myself before plunging ahead.

  Placing one hand on my hip, I try to subtly jut it out in what I can only hope is an alluring stance. I doubt I'm pulling it off as effectively as a more experienced girl would (Not something I feel the slightest lick of shame about.), but all I need is for the intention to be there.