Catharsis (Book 1)

by D. Andrew Campbell

  "But how am I supposed to destroy all those drugs if I can't even get near them?" I ask the two unconscious forms on the lawn next to me. "My speed and reflexes won't do me any good against a room full of opiates and narcotics. Plus, I can't even get back to the room easily since it’s walled off like that and just a giant fire trap."

  And that thought gives me a reason to smile as I figure out what I need to do. If that room is a "fire trap" just waiting to happen, then that is exactly what I will cause to happen. I don't need to get the drugs out to destroy them. I'll just destroy the house around the drugs.

  "Now how am I going to burn a big, brick monstrosity like this one? I'm going to need something that burns really fast and really effectively," I say out loud. Turning to my two unconscious lawn mates again, I ask them, "Either of you got any ideas? No? Well, I guess I'm on my own then."

  The barren front yard immediately proves to be useless as a source of inspiration, so I leave my two new friends (I believe "friends" should be used in the loosest of senses here.) and hustle around to the back of the house to see if it proves to be more productive.

  The detritus of the abandoned slum house cover the back yard, and most of it proves to be as useless as the completely empty front yard. I'm greeted by broken lawn chairs, smashed children's toys, a rickety wooden playset, a plastic wading pool partially filled with brown, mosquito larvae-infested sludge water, and a three-legged grill that's apparently been pummeled with a baseball bat and tipped onto its side.

  "Hey now," I say to the last item I noticed. "That might actually work." Hustling (as much as that is possible with my body turning against itself and the two bullets angrily vying for my attention from their position in my gut.) over to the grill, I examine the contraption's carcass for signs of its fuel supply. The white, bulbous tank is still attached to the underside via a severed hose, but it appears the metal casing took the brunt of whatever beating was given here. Gingerly I lift the canister, but I can immediately tell it feels too light to be of any use. I may not have done much grilling myself over the years, but I watched my dad do it and I know a full propane tank is a heavy tank.

  Leaning down over the busted nozzle, I inhale as deeply as my lungs will let me so that my brain can get a taste of the gas's synthetic rotten egg smell. Just because this one's busted, it doesn't mean I have to be completely out of luck. Maybe a neighbor will still have a useable one.

  There isn't much juice left in the tank, but it's enough for me to pick up the scent (As awful as it is.). Standing up and closing my eyes, I put all of my energy into breathing and discerning what smells are crossing my olfactory membranes. I quickly categorize and ignore each scent as it comes into my brain until I get to the one I want: sulfur. Someone nearby also has a gas grill, and it has enough left in its tank to get my attention.

  Spinning, I turn my body until the scent gets stronger and then I slowly lope off across the grassy yards in search of my metal prey. After jogging across five different backyards, I finally approach a very well-kept and manicured yard that doesn't match any of the others around it. Apparently the residents of this house are in denial about the type of neighborhood they're still living in. Even in the dark I can tell the lawn is green and recently mown and the flower beds have been recently weeded. Hopping the low, black chain link fence, I land softly among what I believe are azaleas (Gardening was always my mother's strong suit, not mine. I liked helping her, but never enough to know the names of the different flora she spent her time immersed in.).

  As I pad through the grass on my way to their stone patio and the massive gas grill visible under an awning, I notice creepy little bearded heads watching me from the flower beds. And more from under a random bench next to a maple tree. And there are others spread sporadically around the property. Stooping next to one of the little heads (How am I supposed to ignore something that looks like little people populating an entire backyard? It's creepy.) I discover it's attached to a tiny body dressed in what appears to be a circus outfit. Another body to my left is dressed in blue and pushing a tiny wheelbarrow.

  They're little bearded people. Garden gnomes. Everywhere. This house has been infested with an entire flock (Is that the right word for a group of creepy, fake, hirsute critters?) of them. As I slowly spin around and look in all directions, my brain quickly tallies at least a hundred of them visible from where I'm standing.

  "Wow," I say to the miniature Santa clone at my feet. "I guess good lawn care doesn't always equate to good taste, huh?" I do my best to ignore the dozens of eyes all staring at me as I cross the last few yards to the patio and the grill perched upon it.

  The massive mound of metal in front of me is the largest cooking contraption I've ever seen. It's roughly the size of a compact car, and it's been built into the brick and stone of the patio. With my brain tuned to the smell of the propane, I can sense more than one source coming from this thing (With its size, I'm kind of surprised it doesn't run on gasoline or something similarly powerful. There's no way one propane canister would ever power this monstrosity for more than a day.). The front doors of the grill that hide the propane are locked, but the metal gives little resistance once I apply enough muscle to it (It doesn't take much additional strength to bend the metal and get the doors open, but it's enough to remind me that the hunger I've been repressing won't stay down for long.).

  With the doors open, I discover the grill actually contains three shiny, white eggs of explosive gas all hooked up to the interior of the system via hoses. I'd love to bring all three back with me, but I don't see that being a truly viable option. I'll have enough trouble just carrying one of these things, let alone lugging two. With a small sigh of disappointment at not being able to take all the prizes, I begin the quick work of making sure the tanks are turned off (No point in releasing any extra propane, yet.) and unhooking them from the belly of the silver metal beast.

  Once I have the two tanks out, I do my best to shut the doors and cover my tracks (I'm able to bend the doors back into their original position, or at least something pretty closely matching it.), but a hint of guilt sneaks up and stops me from sprinting away. I'm stealing from an innocent person. Not only am I stealing from them, but I've also damaged their property. I don't want to have something like this on my conscience (And yes I do see the irony of this as I plan on taking their stuff in order to burn down another house and steal bags full of cash. But that's different.).

  Digging around in my pockets, I pull out a few of the bills I had wedged in there. I toss them inside the open grill without looking at them. I don't want to know how much it is, I just want to be able to do something good for these people and their odd gnome army. Let's just hope my good intentions carry more weight than the destructive ones.

  I pick up the two tanks and wedge each under one of my arms (I can tell they have weight to them, but they still don't seem heavy to me.) and begin my jog back to the house I'm hoping to destroy. I've been gone for nearly four minutes, and I've got work to do before this night is over.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Both men (Mr. Reluctant and the one I now think of as Captain No Face.) are still sprawled and motionless on the front lawn where I left them. Good. That's at least a wee bit of luck in my favor.

  Seeing them (And more importantly, smelling the ichor that has dried on Captain No Face's...well, face.) causes a fist of dizziness to reach up and punch me in the gut, and I drop both tanks onto the dirt. The tanks are quickly followed by my own body as I drop onto all fours and stare at the dirt in an attempt to block out the human forms only a few feet away. The hunger fights me for control of my body as I once again work to suppress it, but I know I'm running out of time. I can't keep ignoring its pull on me. The more I push myself and my abilities, the stronger the argument for giving in to it grows.

  But I don't have time for that now. I have to finish with the house first, and then I can entertain thoughts about appeasing the hunger. The darkness will just have to learn that I have pri
orities, and right now it is not at the top of the list.

  Breathing shallowly, I push the knowledge of what is lying on the grass a few feet away from me out of my mind and focus on the tanks. I need those things to explode, but how am I going to make that happen?

  One step at a time, that's how. There's no point in getting them to explode out here on the lawn. I need to get them inside the building first, and that's going to require me to get up and get moving.

  "Baby steps," I say to the patch of dirt and grass a foot in front of my vision. "Let's do this in small, accomplishable baby steps."

  I stand and grab the two white tanks from where I'd dropped them on the ground earlier. Lifting them much more easily than I should be able to do (Given the fact that I'm a girl whose weight barely clears three digits on a good day, and these canisters have to each weigh nearly as much as both my legs combined. Plus I've been shot and I'm still bleeding. All of those are good reasons as to why I shouldn't be able to heft these like they are just grocery bags to be brought in from the car.), I stumble towards the open doorway and toss the tanks through it. The solid thud of their landing can be felt even out on the front stoop where I remain standing. One spins for a moment before rolling gently backwards and resting against the wall. The other just lands, wobbles for a moment and then rights itself without bothering with further theatrics.

  "Now they're placed," I breathe out and say quietly before turning to face the two bodies I had unceremoniously dumped earlier. "Let's blow 'em up and get out of here, what do ya say?"

  Looking at the two men, I remember that Captain No Face never released his gun earlier after I introduced him to the future world of plastic surgery (and he's going to need a lot of it.). Limping over towards him (My legs are fine, but my belly pain from the bullets has started to spread to my entire left side. I'm sure it can't be a good sign.), I bend down and grab the gun so I can wrestle it from his hand.

  It's large and silver and shiny and I can feel the oppressive weight of it in my hands as I pry his fingers off of it. I hate guns. I always have, and now having to hold one in my hands is anything but calming.

  In the movies guns are always very cool, and I can appreciate them in that setting. I love action movies, and I love watching a hero fight his way out of a horrible place by shooting everything in sight. Dumb action movies were always a way for me to bond with my dad, and we loved going to the theater and watching them together. There are few things more enjoyable to watch in cinema than a well-choreographed shootout with spectacular acrobatic jumps and gravity- and reality-defying shots.

  But that's where guns should stay: in the movies. They should remain in an imaginary place where they can't do damage to real people. They should just be something that exists in our imagination and televisions can bring to life for us. Like dragons. Or horror movie monsters. Things that don't really exist, but are fun to pretend can get us.

  In the real world, though, guns are scary and powerful and can destroy a person in an instant (I still miss my Uncle Luca, and it is because of him I will never use a gun against another human on purpose.). That level of indiscriminate power shouldn't be wielded by a mortal man. No living thing should have that kind of power.

  I know guns' place in the world, and I understand it. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

  With all those thoughts in my head, I carry the gleaming instrument of death across the lawn until I have a good view of the tank resting against the wall in the doorway. Holding the gun up in front of me, I thumb the little button that releases the clip (Just because I don't like guns in real life, it doesn't mean I haven't paid close attention to them in the movies.) and let it slide out enough to make sure there are bullets still in it.

  There are still four left in the little gray tower as I push it back into the bottom of the gun. That should be enough.

  "Well, this works in the movies," I say out loud. "No reason to believe it wouldn't work in real life, too."

  Raising the gun up in my right arm, I squint my eye and reinforce my grip with my left hand. Breathing out slowly, I wait until my lungs are completely empty, and then I sight the white egg of the tank through the ridges on the top of the gun (I've watched a lot of movies with my dad. Thanks film industry for my firearm education!).

  "Boom," I whisper and then pull the trigger four times. The gun barely jumps in my hand after each bullet leaps from the end of the gun (Apparently my strength is good for more than just carrying the tanks.), and I watch as each lump of lead races away from me so that it can bite into the waiting metal hide of the tank.

  Bing!

  Bing!

  Bong!

  Bung!

  I watch as each slug smacks into the metal of the can, scores the white paint off revealing the underlying silver, and then ricochets off into the night.

  Four shots. Four dents. Not a single explosion.

  "Poop nuggets," I mutter. "I guess movies did fail me." Those tanks are thicker than I expected. Now I gotta find another way to do this.

  Dropping the gun into the grass at my feet (I have no desire to hold that horrible thing any longer than I have to), I jog towards the tanks and the door as another idea begins to form. If I can't shoot the tanks to make them explode, then I'll just empty the tanks of what's inside them and use that to explode the house.

  Stepping onto the front porch, I leap the final eight feet into the house and land deftly next to the tanks. Out of curiosity, I run my fingers along the four shiny dents in the side of the tank. The dimples the slugs created are impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the thickness of the metal apparently.

  Stupid movies with their stupid special effects. Next you're going to tell me that cars don't explode instantly when they drive off a cliff (Actually I'm pretty sure they don't. That one always struck me as a bit of a reach, but I'm sure you get the gist of my sarcasm here.).

  Stepping over to the uninjured tank, I grasp the release valve at the top and quickly spin it open. The rotten egg smell that allowed me to track the canisters in the first place quickly begins to fill the air around me. I pick up the quietly hissing white can and toss it with all my strength down the hall and watch as it bounces into the kitchen.

  With it gone, I turn my attention to the remaining propane tank and twist its nozzle to fully open. As the heavy gas pours out and covers the floor (I'm not sure if I can actually see it shimmering on the ground like a mirage of a lake on a hot day in the desert, or if it's just my imagination, but either way I know it's there performing its deadly duty.), I right the egg and stand it on its end so that it won't roll out the door. After stepping back and noticing that the open spigot is aiming its lethal dose of a gas out the front door, I quickly step back in and adjust the aim so that it is pointing towards the kitchen (I want to soak that part of the house as much as possible.).

  Stepping away from the rising stink of the house, I make my way back to the gun I had dropped. I wish I had saved a bullet earlier, but I hadn’t planned on the previous attempt failing like it did. Holding the heavy metal weight in my hand, I contemplate how to get a spark near the gas on the floor of the house.

  I could throw the gun at the tank and hope that the steel of the gun hitting the steel of the tank would be enough to spark and ignite it. It's a good idea, but I'm not guaranteed that a spark will result. It might just bounce off the tank harmlessly (Notice that with my new skills my ability to hit the tank with the gun from dozens of yards away is not even a factor in my plan. I know I can hit the tank; that's not the problem. In the back of my mind, the surety of this knowledge scares me a bit.) or just dent the can or the impact might be dissipated by the tank’s thick, white paint.

  Instead of hitting the can, I could instead aim for the bricks on the house around the doorway. Won't steel hitting bricks make a spark, or was that just in movies? (Can I no longer trust that source of information at all?) But even if it does make a spark (which is hardly a given), how do I know if the gas has gotten thick enoug
h around the outside of the house for that spark to ignite it. I might get lucky and get the spark, and then have that spark be useless.

  "Double poop nuggets!" I growl at the house in front of me that seems to be able to inadvertently thwart all of my attacks.

  In desperation, I turn back towards Captain No Face. If I'm lucky he might have another clip stashed in a pocket, or just some extra rounds I can load up and fire into the house in a vain attempt to get something to spark. It's not the best idea, but it currently beats impotently staring at the house and hoping for a sudden attack of spontaneous combustion.

  Rifling through his pockets, I do my best to ignore the intoxicatingly delicious aromas arising from him. I don't want to think about what the smells are doing to my gut right now (my ability to ignore that side of my self will only last a few moments longer), or even worse, where they are coming from and why my body finds them so appetizing. I don't find any extra bullets or ammunition in his pockets (I didn't really think I would, but I had to at least try something.), but I do find something even better: a partially crumpled package of cigarettes and a lighter.

  Without wasting any more time celebrating the fortuitousness of my find, I grab his sleeve and rip it off and pull it down over his arm. I wrap the shredded piece of cloth around the gun so that I can use it as a weighted anchor (It might prove to be useful after all.) while walking back towards the gaping maw of the brick house.

  The tainted chemical smell of the propane has begun to seep out into the yard, but it isn't strong enough to be a threat to me yet. Holding the lighter under a loose piece of the sleeve, I flick the wheel and watch the flame leap out and grab onto the fabric.

  Thank goodness for cotton, I think as the material quickly becomes consumed by the fire. Once I'm sure the flame won't go out from being thrown through the air, I lob the burning gun underhand towards the doorway (I don't need accuracy or speed here, just a light toss to get it in the right place without it extinguishing itself.).