Catharsis (Book 1)

by D. Andrew Campbell

  Exhausted, I stand and watch the small fireball arc towards its target. As it crosses the front porch still several feet from the open doorway, the air around the fireball begins to ignite. Time slows for me (Probably my survival instincts kicking in, but I'm too tired and in too much pain to make use of them.) as the flame races ahead of the moving fireball and the air itself turns orange. Suddenly the entire doorway turns into radiant light and the gun's flame is engulfed in overwhelming brightness.

  I have enough time to realize that what I'm seeing is incredibly beautiful and that I shouldn't remain standing here, when the fire reaches out to me with a tear-inducing hug of heat and a concussive slap of air.

  The blast lifts me up and tosses me backwards tush over head (For once, this is something the movies have actually gotten correct.), and I tumble for several feet and roll across the lawn. My skin already feels red, shiny and blistery, and I'm pretty sure I've suffered burns from the blast. Even lying on the grass, I can tell my clothes have been shredded. I can feel the grass and dirt touching my stomach and legs in places it shouldn't be able to.

  Blinking away tears, I do my best to focus on the house which is now engulfed in flames. It's still standing and in one piece (The brickwork of the structure did a solid job of containing the explosion.), but I can see flames licking out of the open doorway and several shattered windows. Whatever drugs were in there are now a thing of the past.

  And then the smell hits me. Not the bonfire smell of the house and the roasting drugs (which are nauseating in the background), but the enticing smell of something that pulls at me deep in my gut. The darkness that I've been repressing surges forth from wherever I'd been quashing it and meets no resistance. I'm done fighting for now. I give in to it.

  The warmth that fills me as it rushes through my body is exhilarating. It feels good to give in to it. It feels natural. It feels needed.

  And that scares me.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  It's dark, and I'm curled in a ball. I know I've been here for hours, but I don't want to open my eyes. I don't want to see what I look like, or accept what has occurred in the last few hours. Especially what happened after the explosion. I don't want to recognize what I am capable of doing, but I know I'll have to at some point. I can't ignore that part of who I am, of who I'm becoming, forever.

  Even without opening my eyes, I can pick out the familiar scents that tell me this is my dark closet at the warehouse. I've been laying on the floor in here for a long time. I'm pretty sure if I want to I could remember every moment of the last several hours and what I did, but I don't want to. I'm happy to let the darkness have everything, every moment of my life, since leaving that brick house.

  Physically, I know I feel much better than I should. My skin no longer aches nearly as bad as it did from the blast, and the hunger that had gripped my body previously has released its dark hold on me. I don't want to move my hands to check, but I'm pretty sure I no longer have gaping holes in my side from the bullets, either. Aside from the permanent scars that have been etched onto my psyche from what I allowed myself to do to those two men on the lawn, I'm as healthy and as intact as I've ever been (Something tells me the mental images I have of myself fulfilling what the darkness wanted me to do, though, will stay with me a lot longer than any broken bone could ever possibly do.).

  I'm just tired. It's not a need-to-sleep tired, but a I-don't-want-to-accept-reality tiredness. I need to keep my eyes closed a bit longer before I get up and leave this closet and begin the next stage of my mission: ransacking the house on Cummerlin Road.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Just under seventy hours. That's how long I spent laying in the dark of the closet trying to avoid the world and what the future held for me. There was never a need to eat, drink or pee. Or really sleep, for that matter. I lay in the room and closed my eyes and went back over the last few weeks in my mind, but I can't say I ever really lost consciousness. It's been a weird sensation realizing I haven't slept in over half a month, and the lack of sleep hasn't adversely affected me at all (Not sleeping certainly isn't my biggest problem right now. The reason why I don't have to eat or drink any more is the much bigger issue.).

  I did take one small break some thirty hours into my seclusion to make sure Lazzy still had access to his food and some water and that I had left a side door open so he could get outside if he wanted to. After that I made sure to leave the closet door cracked so he could come in to me if he wanted to, and he did off and on over the previous day and a half. It was nice to have his unconditional love, and soft fuzziness, smashed up against me. His presence has made getting past the darkness a little bit easier. Without him nuzzling me from time to time, I'm not sure I would have the strength to face what is coming.

  "Hey Lazzy. Come 'ere boy," I say softly and finally commit to sitting all the way up. I can hear him snuffling around outside the closet door before he pops his head through and jogs over to me. Since living with me here in the warehouse his hair has started growing in thicker and shinier. Something tells me that getting a regular meal is a good thing for him. He wags his fluffy - yet still slightly scraggly - tail at me and proceeds to lick my cheeks and ears.

  "Good boy," I tell him and dig my fingers into the hair on his back side and scritch it back and forth (with the grain, and then against the grain) in the way I know he likes. "You're a good boy, Lazzy," I tell him in that annoyingly pitched voice that all dog owners seem to innately adapt when talking to their canine friends.

  It's refreshing to have some unconditional friendship right now. I need it after what happened at those houses. I know my intentions were good and I destroyed a house full of poison that was meant for the streets, but I also did some bad things, too. I destroyed a house and most likely burnt it to the ground. I hurt people. They weren't exactly innocent people, but they were still living beings that I inflicted torment upon. And I did worse than that. At least to two people I did something even worse than just inflict simple pain.

  I shake my head and vow not to dwell on what occurred. It happened, and it is now in the past (And if they hadn't already chosen a path of evil, then they never would have been at that house in the first place.).

  After a few more well-deserved behind-the-ear scratches, I release my beloved fluff ball and push myself to my feet. I should be wobbly after being curled in a ball for three days, but I'm as steady as a decades-old oak tree shrugging off the spring winds. My body feels good. Nothing in me feels tight or cramped or out of place. I stretch and wiggle my extremities to get the blood to flow through them evenly.

  "Uhmmmm," I moan as I release the stretch and settle into a relaxed stance. "Might as well get this started."

  Just outside the closet door I see the duffle bags from the other night, undisturbed and still stuffed with cash (I can't see the money, but the distinct scent of sweat and cloth and greed clings to the bags and loudly declares what's hidden just behind the zipper.). I have no idea what I'm going to do with the bills yet, but I know it's better that they are with me rather than still be at that house. I'll find a use for them at some point. Maybe I'll even get a real home instead of this warehouse.

  Looking up at the warehouse's large windows, I can see the night sky beckoning to me. I'm not necessarily eager to go out to another house and repeat what I just went through, but I know it must be done. The longer I put it off, the more excuses I'll find to avoid it. To be honest with myself, aside from sitting around here and letting depression wrap its gray fingers around me, there isn't much else for me to do. I no longer have a home. I don't think it's safe to go back to my family. I can't really be trusted to be around people. I'm just a girl with a dog and a mission.

  To make matters worse, and I don't want to completely give in to this part of myself yet, I enjoyed dismantling that drug house and stopping the illegal activities that were occurring there. I felt like I was doing some good in the world. Whatever happened to me in that alley weeks ago created a fork in the road o
f my life, and I have had to choose: either take the heroic path or an evil one. I don't think I'm allowed to just coast through life anymore. That option no longer exists for me. I need to either give in to the darkness and see where its warmth can take me, or I need to resist it for as long as possible and abuse the powers it gives me so that I can make a difference in the world.

  Destroying these drug houses is how I'm going to change the world. I will destroy each house until I find the man responsible for them, and then I will destroy him. By doing that I will have helped reestablish the balance of good and evil that my very existence seems to threaten.

  Looking down at the burned and shredded (and now partially blood-covered) clothes I've been wearing for the last few days (Clothes don't matter much when you're living in a giant warehouse by yourself.), I contemplate changing into one of my few other outfits. My ensemble makes me look absolutely horrifying, and I realize I might as well be a horror movie monster. My pants are in tatters from the explosion and there is blood and ash stained all over them. My tank top is in slightly better condition after the blast with only a few holes in it, but the entire left side is caked in my dried blood from the gunshot wounds I sustained. To round out my horrifying look, I've also got dried blood down my face and throat and onto my chest. An impressive amount of blood that isn't mine (I know how it got there, but it’s also something I refuse to think about right now.), and I'm sure the sight of it will give any normal person pause.

  I realize there is no other outfit I could put on that could possibly work more to my advantage in startling people tonight. I might not even want to hide myself once I arrive, and instead I'll use my visage to my advantage.

  On a whim, I bend down and open one of the duffel bags and pull out a small stack of hundred dollar bills and shove them into my front pocket. I have no idea if it will be useful or not, but I figure there isn't much else from here that I can bring that would benefit me in any way. And it was nice being able to pay those people for their propane tanks to assuage some of the guilt my thieving generated. Maybe an opportunity like that will arise again. Best to be prepared.

  "C'mere Lazzy. Give mommy a kiss before she goes," I say to my only friend left in the world. I let him jump up on my hunched form and lick my cheeks and ears again (He avoids my chin and neck where the dried blood is. I don't blame him for being bothered by it.). His slobber is reassuring and helps ground me.

  This is my happy moment, I think. This is what helps make it all worthwhile. A flickering image of my parents jumps in my mind for a moment, but I push it away. That's too painful to think about. I can't think about what my disappearance has done to them. If I start thinking about that, I'll give in and visit them or contact them. And what happens if the dark hunger strikes while I'm there?

  "No," I tell myself and shake my head. "That part of my life is behind me now. Let's just think about tonight. And doing good things."

  I pause and look at Lazzy and smile. "And some very, very bad things to some very evil people."

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  The house didn't take me long to find once I set out to locate it. Same type of neighborhood as the previous one (run-down, low-income houses that a century ago used to be upscale but are now mostly abandoned), it’s just in a different part of the city. Running at night through the empty streets (and avoiding detection from the occasional lone person) was a fun activity that helped take my mind off of what I'm on my way to do. Once I got into the right part of town, my sense of smell led me the rest of the way (A house packed with hundreds of pounds of drugs gives off a subtle but easily discernible scent. At least it does to me.).

  On the jog over, I noticed I still had Captain No Face's lighter in my pocket (no idea when I put it in there), and that gave me an idea. Once I picked up the trail of the house (Can a house leave a trail?), I detoured slightly so that I could track down a container (Is it a jug? A can? The red five-gallon thing I picked up was made of plastic, so “can” doesn't seem like the right word. And “jug” feels more like it should contain some kind of hillbilly rotgut alcohol. I'll just stick with container.) of gasoline. I eventually found some after checking a detached garage. It was next to a lawnmower and what I'm guessing was a broken weed-eater (judging from the pieces of it that were laying all over the place), so I went ahead and dropped one of the bills I’d brought with me on to the cluttered work bench. That should easily cover the costs of a new canister and offset the inconvenience of not being able to mow for a bit.

  I didn't know if I would have a use for the gasoline once I invaded the den of evil, but it was better to be safe. The last thing I wanted was a recap of the propane incident. “Being prepared” is going to have to beat “being lucky” this time. A fiery explosion was effective in destroying the drugs last time, so I was betting a more subdued version would work again.

  I leave the gasoline sitting next to a mailbox once I get close enough to the building, and I proceed to climb the backside of another nearby house so that I can safely watch from a distance. This part of my plan worked wonderfully last time, so there wasn't much point in altering it.

  While watching the house, I can tell something is up. I'm not sensing the business-as-usual vibe that I got at the other place. They must suspect that either they are my next target, or all the drug houses have been put on high alert to cover their bases because there are several armed men just milling about the outside of the two houses (If I wasn't sure before what my target houses were to be, the half dozen men with large, dark automatic rifles just standing outside the doors of the two houses across the street would be a dead giveaway.). There either must not be much police activity down here, or the police have been paid off to ignore this section of the neighborhood. These guys are brazenly standing around in the open with enough exposed firepower to bring down an army of bulletproof vest-wearing twelve-point bucks (If they were to claim they had the rifles for purely hunting purposes, that is.). If it wasn't for the fact that I no longer care about dying (If I even can die.), then I'd most definitely be scared. But as it is, I'm not.

  Cars still pull up to the curb every dozen minutes or so, but now most of them just pull away quickly without anyone getting out. I watch as a few brave souls do choose to approach the house while doing their best to ignore the burly men standing just a few feet away from the door. I'm too far away to pick out the conversations very well, but it seems to follow the same pattern as before: Hand over money. House one signals house two with a series of flashes from the porch light. Skeezy-looking man (Who now looks petrified as he goes from one front porch to the other.) walks to second house and waits for package to be shoved through mailbox slot. Package in hand, man retreats to car and lays rubber on asphalt pulling away. As far as I can tell, the set-up is the same and these guys are still in business.

  Time for me to put a stop to that.

  "But how do I actually make that happen?" I ask the small brick chimney I'm huddled against for cover. "How am I going to get close enough to burn down that house without getting myself shot in the process?"

  After my previous run-in with a man and his gun, I have no desire to get up close to one of those again. I know I'm fast and right now I'm feeling pretty strong, but I don't want to necessarily pit that against a fully automatic assault rifle if I can avoid it. I need to find a way to remove them from the equation from a distance.

  "Problem solving time," I tell the chimney and push myself backwards towards the side of the roof that faces away from the two houses. Shimmying down the brick side of the house, I land in the barren grass yard and begin scanning my surroundings for inspiration. Moments later I realize I'm standing in a small pile of inspiration: the rock-strewn yard. The patchy grass lawn reveals multiple, large stones and fist-sized rocks that would be perfect for me to throw. If I could hit pillars in the warehouse, I should be able to hit a man holding a gun (At least I'm hoping that's solid logic.).

  Unfortunately, I have no easy way to carry the rocks back up to my p
erch. My shirt is too shredded to be of any use as a carrying device, and no one has left a convenient shopping bag lying around. There's no way I can effectively climb the house while trying to carry handfuls of rocks, so that leaves me with more problem solving.

  Nothing in my immediate surroundings offer any kind of solution, but a glance out towards the street does provide an idea. What I see out there may not be a bag, but it will certainly work to hold my supply of granite ammunition. Jogging out to the road (I choose the direction that still keeps the house between me and the armed men. No point giving away my presence just yet.), I stop at the battered mailbox on the pole that still reads the house's address. Grabbing the plastic of the mailbox's shell (I got lucky it wasn't a metal one. It might not be as strong, but filling it should at least be quieter.) and bracing my other hand on the shaft of wood that goes into the ground, I tug gently and separate the two. Either my strength is in rare form today, or its ricketiness was ready to give way because it didn't take much effort.

  With the mailbox tucked under my left arm, I casually lope back towards the house stopping to pick up any rocks I see along the way. By the time I get back to the brick wall, I've filled the plastic bucket of the mailbox over halfway with stones of varying sizes.

  "Perfect," I say and begin the short climb (Traversing the wall one-handed is challenging, but it just helps me focus on what I need to do.) back up to my shingled crow's nest. "This should make things fun."

  Once I'm back on top of the house, I wedge the rock-filled mailbox into the “V” created by the chimney and the apex of the roof. I want to have easy access to them without risking them spilling out and sliding down to the ground below.