Catharsis (Book 1)

by D. Andrew Campbell

  Digging around among the stones, I select one that is nearly oval-shaped and just slightly smaller than my fist. It doesn't weigh much, but it should be enough to accomplish the job I have for it.

  "Now who gets to volunteer first?" I whisper to the frighteningly well-armed men surrounding the two houses across the street. "One of you will be starting the fun."

  Then I notice one guy standing by himself along the side of the house, and I know who will get my first gift.

  "Congratulations," I hiss through my teeth and pull back my arm to give the throw my full strength. With the speed of a medieval catapult being released, my arm zips forward and I watch as the missile flies through the air toward my intended target.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  The satisfying thwack as the rock connects with the man's head nearly makes me giggle with glee (The violence of what I've just done shouldn't bring me happiness, but it does. I'm learning to accept it.), but I suppress the sound by biting my cheek. The man stumbles backwards for three steps before slumping to the ground and dropping his gun harmlessly to the side.

  My first target had the bad luck of being on the secluded left side of the second house, which put him out of eyeshot and earshot of any other guards. There are still six more armed men that I can see from my position (not counting any who may be on the far side of the houses and beyond my visual reach), and all of them are close enough to each other to make a stealth shot challenging. I only got the one freebie. From here on out, as soon as I drop one of these guys the rest will know something is up. I better make my throws count.

  Even if they realize something is up, at least I still have the thick blanket of dark night hiding me and my actions. That should help me stir up a bit more confusion.

  Rummaging in the mailbox, I pull out eight of the most ergonomically-shaped rocks I can find and line them up along the top brim of the chimney. For things to play out in my favor, I'm going to need to get off as many shots as I can without stopping and digging around for my next rock will not facilitate that.

  With eight rocks "in the chamber" (to borrow some gunslinging slang for a moment), I heft two more round lumps so that I have ten consecutive shots before I'll need to reload. Ten shots for six people should be pretty good odds, but right now I'll need as much in my favor as I can get.

  Examining the three pairs of guards, I try to determine which ones should drop next. The two standing outside the first house's door chatting with their guns dangling at their sides? The two patrolling the lawn between the houses? Or should I start with the men outside the second house with their backs leaning nonchalantly against the wooden frame of the door? Simple strategy makes my decision for me. The two on the lawn are slightly behind the visual field of all the guys at the doors. If I'm quick enough, I might be able to drop them both before they make a sound. That would remove them from the game before the others even realize they're playing.

  Watching the two men chat (I know I should be bothered by the fact that I'm mere moments away from crushing their skulls with a heavy rock and possibly killing them, but the act is barely a blip on my moral radar. The lack of this bothering me does bother me slightly, but not enough to deter my plans. It's merely a narrative that plays in the background of my consciousness.) as they walk slowly across the yellow and faded grass, I do my best to estimate their movement speed and distance.

  "Stupid moving targets," I tell the two men in a quiet voice. "I wish you'd just stand still for me."

  Then I realize I can make that happen myself. Transferring my primary rock to my left hand, I bend down and pick up the first rock I find from the plastic mailbox. In one motion I bring it up and lob it in a nice arc over the street and behind the men so that it bounces in the grass in the back yard. Before the rock even lands, I shift my primary stone back to my right hand and wait for the two guys to turn.

  They both hear the soft thud and whirl around to face it which gives me a perfect angle on two unmoving, fuzzy craniums just waiting to be pummeled with a few of Mother Earth's ancient bones. As soon as their spins are complete, I whip my right hand towards them and release. The second the rock leaves my fingers, I'm reloading with the rock from my left hand and firing again. The missiles fly through the air mere milliseconds apart and both strike their intended targets with gut-turning thuds. The men drop to the ground without ever uttering a sound (Well, aside from the unintended sound of the brittle bone encasing their brains shattering, that is. But I don't think we can give them credit for that.).

  It may not have been much sound, but apparently it was enough to attract the attention of one of the two guys standing next to the second house's doorway. His head immediately whips around toward the side yard, and I hear him shout something that I'm guessing would be the two guys' names. Their lack of an answer doesn't make him happy, and he says something to the other man standing next to the door before starting off towards the lawn and my most recent two victims.

  "Whoops," I say. "I guess it's time to officially get this game started."

  I'd like to hit Startled Guy, but he's a moving target and thus slightly more of a challenge. Stay Behind Guy is at attention next to the door and definitely on high alert now, but at least he's stationary. The two fellows at the first house are watching the proceedings with apparent interest, but they haven't changed their stances yet. I'm sure that'll change in just a moment.

  The darkness works to my advantage as I watch Startled Guy walk around the side of the house and beyond the view of the others. Flashlights weren't part of the drug thug starter kit tonight, so his progress is slow as he unknowingly makes his way towards his fallen friends.

  Grabbing the next two stones from the chimney, I wait until his pace slows a few feet from their prone forms (I'm guessing he's just realized there is something - or somebody - laying in the grass, and he's slowing down to figure out what it is.) and then I launch my first shot at him. He isn't exactly an immobile figure, but he's moving slowly enough for me to pretend he is.

  With my rock already in the air and sailing towards him, he stops completely and turns toward his comrade back at the doorway.

  "Hey, I thi-" he gets out before the half pound of hurtling granite slams into his jaw and prevents him from saying anything else (probably for a long, long time).

  "Biscuits!" I mutter at the inexact shot. His sudden stop messed me up. The rock didn't hit where I had intended - the back of his skull - and instead hit a much less lethal (and ultimately much more painful) location.

  Startled Guy (who has now really earned his nickname) immediately drops to the ground and begins frenetically gurgling and clutching at his face. I have to write him off as a viable target with his arms waving around like that. There's no way I can accurately hit anything vital on him without also risking hitting an elbow, a hand or an arm.

  As soon as Startled Guy had made his initial noise, Stay Behind Guy immediately raised his gun and pointed it in the direction that Startled Guy had wandered off in. The sickeningly soupy and mostly unintelligible sounds that are now emanating from his last known location are not helping Stay Behind to relax (His frightened and stressed stance is visible even from up on the roof.). Time to help the poor guy retire for the evening.

  Shifting my offhand rock to my right hand, I take aim and send another missile spinning out from the roof.

  I can see Stay Behind starting to say something when his head suddenly jerks backwards and slams into the house's heavy wooden door. Blood blossoms on both the front and back of his head as he slowly slides sideways and down the door frame as his weight settles and gives into gravity's gentle pull.

  "Five down and two to go," I say to my remaining rocks. "Let's make that seven and zero."

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  "What the heck just happened to Julian?" Lefty shouts and drops into a crouch next to the door (I'm pretty sure the guy's name isn't "Lefty", but I don't know what else to call him. From where I'm standing the only good identifying features for him a
nd his friend are that one is on my left while facing the house, and the other is on the right. I don't want to keep referring to them as "guy", so calling them Lefty and Righty will make it a bit easier. Oh, and he didn't say "heck", either. I just can't bring myself to repeat what he actually said. Just because I fear my soul may be headed there soon, doesn't mean I have to go against my mother's teachings and say it myself.).

  "Truck, man! Truck!" Righty exclaims and begins to vehemently bang on the heavy wooden door behind him (He didn't say truck, either, but refer to my earlier statement. Just because these two are willing to commit to the depths of unintelligent language, it doesn't mean I have to, also. Use your imagination. You'll figure it out.), before also sliding down into a squatting stance to make his body as small as possible. For large, tough muscle men, these guys really look like they are trying to assume fetal positions (The visual irony would make my old English teachers proud.).

  Their curled forms are effective in limiting how much damage I can do with my projectiles, so I decide to forego trying to knock them out with a single shot. Let's go the opposite direction.

  Starting with Mr. Righty, I move through my remaining rocks on the chimney's edge hurling each one with as much speed as possible but not really worrying about accuracy (aside from just aiming for the lump that is his body). I get six rocks launched before pausing to see how effective the fusillade was.

  Four manage to strike his body and the last two just smash into the bricks of the wall behind him (But their impact is powerful enough to shatter several bricks and spray his body with red clay shrapnel.). The four that made direct contact with him never reached his head so I wasn't able to knock him unconscious, but they did pound his body mercilessly. As soon as the sixth rock hits and the clay dust settles, Righty rolls away from the front porch and takes off limping around the side of the house. His escape would bother me, but he did it without his gun (which he left lying on the dirty, gray cement) and without the use of his right arm (which was dangling uselessly to his side as he awkwardly trundled away). I don't have much worry about him returning tonight.

  "Eight down. One to go," I say to myself and rummage in the plastic mailbox for my next few rocks.

  "Ship! Ship! Ship!" I can hear Lefty saying down there as he wildly spins back and forth pointing his gun at everything and nothing; whichever can gain his attention the fastest.

  He's going to hurt someone with that thing, I realize. And it's more likely to be some random guy on the street walking a dog (well, that's not very likely in this neighborhood, but you get the point) than someone who deserves it, like a fellow drug thug.

  His movements are too jittery and chaotic for me to get a consistent bead on his head, so instead I take a similar path as I did with Righty: launch several shots in his direction and hope for the best. Four quick throws later, I stop and wait for the results.

  The first two smash into the wall of the house and spray debris on him. Hunching his shoulders for protection he curls his upper body as a shield from the sharp bits flying at his backside. The third rock smashes into the large rifle in his hand. I don't know if it hit hard enough to damage it, but it was certainly enough to make him drop it (just as effective in my eyes). The final rock connects just below his sternum and the momentum of it carries him backwards into the red cloud of brick dust and the wall.

  With the fine dust of the wall settling on his shoulders, he doesn't wait for a fifth rock to land. He just runs. Not toward the other house. Not toward his fallen friends. Just away. And quickly. I watch as he hits the pavement of the street, alters his direction slightly and just runs down the middle of the road away from the two houses.

  "Good enough for me," I say and gather my few remaining rocks into the plastic container and make my way towards the back of the house so I can descend from my perch. Once on the ground, I make my way over to my stashed gas can (I know what I said earlier about referring to it as a "container", but I guess the phrase still works.) and carry it and my mailbox towards the second house. The house that I suspect contains the drugs. The house that I plan to get rid of first.

  With all of the visible outside thugs disposed of, I boldly walk up the middle of the street not worrying about who's going to see me. As I approach the driveway of the drug house, the first house's door slowly cracks open, and I can see a man standing in the open space it reveals (apparently all of Righty's banging and screaming earlier finally got a response).

  Dropping the gas tank out of my right hand, I quickly reach down and grab several stones. I don't know if the man in the doorway has seen me yet or how long I have until he slams that heavy wooden door shut, but I plan to take advantage of this opportunity.

  I pull and launch as many consecutive rocks as I can into the air before the man knows they are even coming. I'm letting go of my seventh rock as the first one whistles through the shaft of light and connects with the guy's leg. It wasn't much of a shot, but it's enough to make him stumble. And then the next six start slamming into him and the door and the wall behind him and the door frame, and he disappears from the opening. I don't know if I knocked him out, knocked him backwards or he just ran, but he isn't visible anymore. More importantly, he left the door wide open (Well he left it cracked, but my rocks smashing into it moved it the rest of the way.).

  "Now that's something I'll take advantage of," I say and drop the mostly empty mailbox. "But first let's take care of this other house real quick." Picking up the gas can, I trot up the driveway to the large house's imposing front door (They certainly do pick homes with well-built entrances. That's a frustrating habit.).

  Dropping the can on the front porch, I step back and examine this barrier to my entry into the house. I could search for another way in, but I don't have time right now. That other door won't stay open long, so I need to get this done without delay. It's going to have to be the front door or nothing, and nothing is not an option.

  The door is a heavy wood, and I can see multiple locks adorning the edge of it. Somebody doesn't want this place opened easily, and they've put a lot of effort into making this entrance impenetrable.

  "Well, somebody's about to get a little surprise," I whisper and close my eyes so that I can center my strength for what I'm about to do.

  Memories of the last time I tried to draw too much power flood back over me, and the tingle of real fear tickles the edges of my consciousness. I don't want to black out or have those shooting pains again in my gut, but I need the full range of my new abilities right now. I need the strength that comes from the darkness. Pushing the wisps of fear to the side (It can be a passenger for this journey, but I can't afford to let it drive.), I let the power I've been keeping in check flow up from inside of me and course through my body.

  It feels wonderful. It's beautiful and magnificent and addicting. I never want to let this sensation go. This is something I want to get used to. There may be a dark side to what I'm embracing, but right now its existence is a distant memory.

  I am one with the night, and I shall not be stopped.

  Breathing again, I let my senses taste every molecule of air that passes through me. This is definitely where they are storing the drugs; the mingling of different pungent scents ebbs through every crack in the place. Beyond the poisoned air, I can pick out four different people inside the house. Two of them are sweating fear through their pores like soft serve ice cream at a dessert bar: it's running thick and out of control (They must have heard what happened out here or heard about what happened during my previous visit to a house.). The third guy has consumed some of the house's poison and is no longer cognitive enough to even realize he should be afraid. The final person in the house is giving me nothing. I can taste no recognizable emotion at all.

  "Strange," I say and my voice comes out in the dark, husky growl that I had forgotten I had. "I'll have to hunt him down later."

  Four people on the other side of this door, and they're all armed and ready for me. That should scare me, but it doesn't.
Right now their presence barely even registers as something I should worry about, let alone fear.

  "Knock, knock," I growl at the door (Apparently the part of my brain that is in control of pithy one-liners still has a vote right now. That's good. I wouldn't want to get bored.) and lift my leg so that I can stomp on the door handle. Centering my weight into my left leg, I let the tingle of the darkness flow through me and gather in my lower half, and then I release my foot and fire it into the door like a muscle-controlled piston. I expect my foot to shatter the door handle and push through to the inside of the house, but that doesn't happen.

  The wood of the door withstands the impact of the blow (It causes the whole front of the house to shake like it just got hit by a truck, but it doesn't buckle.) with only some impressive creaking to show for my effort.

  "Hmmm," I mutter at the door. "I'll huff and I'll puff..." My words trail off as I reposition my feet so that I can use my fist on the door instead. If a foot didn't work, let's try something else. Redirecting the energy in me from my lower half to my arms, I channel what I have into my right fist and pull it back and slam it into the door just above the door handle.

  The wood shatters and my arm disappears as it plunges through the door and on into the front hall of the house. Unfortunately the whole door didn't shatter; just the five-inch circle of wood where I had connected with my fist. Too much force in too small of an area. Stupid physics.

  "Crap apples," I say as I pull my bleeding arm back through the hole in the door (The sharp edges of the splintered door lacerate my arm as I pull it back through, and I can see blood coursing down my bronze skin and dripping off the end of my hand. It's gruesome, but it doesn't really hurt. The pain from the injury is no longer prioritized in my brain. Thank you dark side of me; that's downright useful.) and step back to reassess how I’m going to get in.

  "The wolf is getting in this brick house, little piggies." I say and smile. "Count on it."