Catharsis (Book 1)

by D. Andrew Campbell

  My helpful advice only causes them to whisper more fervently and more excitedly, and then I realize that both of their voices are slightly muffled. This might be the opportunity I was looking for.

  Peeking out around the edge of the bathroom door, I see that both of them are completely behind the overturned table and neither is looking out and watching me. I am completely unguarded.

  "Idiots," I mumble and take off at a sprint towards the table several yards away. Halfway across the room, I throw the gun's clip I had been carrying as hard as I can against the table's far side. It ricochets off the flat surface with a resounding CRACK a moment before I clear the opposite end of the table for my impromptu meeting with my two new friends. As I expected, the loud sound attracted their attention and they are both turned away from me as I come around the edge. It's a large table, so both men were able to crouch instead of sitting on the floor.

  A tall, waifishly thin dark-skinned man with intricately braided hair pulled back into a colorfully beaded ponytail (I was right about him being black!) is the closest one to me, and I swing the AK's firing rod into his right forearm and grimace as I hear both bones shatter. Gravity tears the now useless gun from his grip as his arm begins to sag at an unnatural angle. His mouth pops open sucking in air, and I listen as he prepares to scream in pain.

  Nope, I think. You should have taken my offer. No screaming today.

  Raising the rod away from his broken arm, I change direction and swing it broadside into his throat just below his Adam's apple (I don't want to crush his trachea and kill him; I just want to shut him up and incapacitate him.). The pain must be overwhelming as his eyes water and he drops to the ground at my feet while making unpleasant little hurking noises.

  With the first guy out of the way, I turn my attention on the other fellow who was plotting my demise and I discover I was completely wrong in my prediction. The large, round Hispanic blimp of a boy that turns to face me is nothing like the skinny, white boy I had predicted. The difference between what I expected and what I'm actually seeing is startling (How can such a big boy produce such a high, squeaky voice? Score one for nature and its many surprises!).

  Instead of inflicting pain on this one (I kind of feel sorry for him.), I decide to just quickly subdue him. But before I do that, I need to remove that gun from the equation. Whipping the blasting rod out and forward, I catch the knuckles of his hand with a jarring crack which causes it to open involuntarily and release the gun. As soon as I see the gun fall from his grip, I release the AK's blasting rod (It has served its purpose well.) and let it drop to the floor, also.

  Before either the gun or the rod have reached the floor, I am already climbing the big man's back and mounting him like a child going for a piggyback ride. Instead of grabbing his shoulders, though, I wrap my right arm around his fleshy throat and slide it into a perfect choking position. There's a bit more meat on him than I expected, so I have to grab his hair and yank his head back to open up my angle more. Once that's accomplished, I settle in with the crook of my elbow pinching into his twin carotid arteries and squeeze as tightly as I can.

  The sudden lack of blood flowing into his brain gives me the spectacular result I was hoping for: a completely limp body within seconds (His surprise at what I was doing and elevated heart rate certainly didn't help him any. It only served to expedite the procedure.).

  Gently dismounting him as he falls, I let his enormous body sag to the ground and rest against the table. He won't be a happy camper when he wakes up, but at least he's still in one piece and relatively uninjured.

  Stepping over the tall, black man who's still twitching on the ground and holding his shattered forearm, I scoop up both pistols and quietly pull them apart before dropping the pieces into a neat pile. If anyone in this organization actually knows how to reassemble these things I could be in trouble, but something tells me most of these guys aren't that intelligent.

  "Now let's collect that prize money," I say to the two men on the ground as I step around them to get to the pile of loose bills on the ground.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  The money forms a small mountain on the worn carpeted floor, and as far as I can tell there is even more here than at the previous location. Now that I'm not solely concentrating on the two men who have been shooting at me, I notice piles of green papery cloth on almost every surface of the room: tables, chairs, counters, a ratty blue ottoman next to a couch. Their organizational skills may not be the strongest, but they certainly seem to be able to bring in massive amounts of money quite effectively.

  "I think I'm in the wrong profession," I say while staring around me at all the liquid income lying about. "Oh wait," I continue. "I don't have a profession." Then I remember the overturned table next to me and the two men lying crumpled on the floor mere feet from where I'm standing. "Well, except for robbing you guys, I mean. But I'm not sure that counts as an actual job yet." I smile at them even though they can't see me. "I really think it's more of a hobby, personally."

  A quick scan of the room doesn't reveal any useful duffel bags this time (I'll need to remember to start bringing those with me from now on.), so I'll need to improvise in order to get this cash out. I certainly don't want to carry it out by hand, fistful by fistful, so I start thinking creatively.

  Looking at all the objects in the room - overturned table, small coffee table, moaning men, piles of cash, tattered couch and matching loveseat - I remember a thought that had occurred to me earlier: boys playing with making a fort. Couch cushions make for a good fort (at least they always did for my sister and I growing up and playing in our family room), and even better is that most cushions have a zipper on them so you can pull out the foam and wash the cloth outside (I found that out the hard way as a kid when I scraped my cheek on an exposed zipper while playing in our fort. That memory has stuck with me: soft, comfortable things can sometimes bite you when you least expect it.). If I can unzip some of these cushion shells, then I'll have an instant (and impressively homemade) sack in which to store the money.

  The couch and loveseat combine to give me six useable money containers (A few were too ripped to hold anything, and two had stains on them that scared me too much to touch. I'm not sure what these guys did in their free time, but the last thing I wanted to do was get a whiff of it and find out.), which I waste no time at all filling with the cash. The fatter the bags become, the heavier they are, and their heaviness forces me to use more of the darkness to fuel my strength so that I can lift them. The system is creating a tradeoff that's beginning to scare me, especially since I can feel the darkness pulling me towards the two men on the ground. It wants to feed so that I can remain strong, but I don't want to give in to it (I really don't want to give in to it ever, but I understand it is now a part of me. An unwanted part, but still a part of me I have to live with.).

  As part of my inner compromise, I use as much of my strength as I'm able to while still pushing the darkness down and ignoring whatever my senses try to tell me (Mostly it’s images of how delicious the nearby hearts could be.). It's a taxing and distracting process, but a necessary one for what I need to do.

  Once I've managed to stuff the six, ugly brown cushion-sacks with as much money as they can hold without splitting open, I begin the arduous task of dragging all of them through the house and towards the front door. They are too unwieldy and heavy for me to just pick them all up and lug them over my shoulder, so I've resorted to piling them all on top of each other and just pulling the entire pile behind me. It may not be a pretty method, but it's getting the job done. I know I can't get them home like this, but as long as I can get them all outside then I can dump them and let the neighborhood consume what I can't carry. My main goal is to just not let these guys reap the monetary benefits of their foul deeds (And maybe to keep a little for myself and for my family. I think I deserve a little something for all my work in this.).

  I get my makeshift train to the corner of the front hallway before I have to finally pause a
nd rest. The darkness inside of me is screaming to be released and heard, and the more I squash it down inside of me the more insistent it's becoming. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I turn to look at the front door to measure how much more distance I have to go when I see him. There's a tall, well-dressed (his shirt and suit jacket do not fit with tonight's drug thug theme at all), dark-skinned man standing just a few feet away from me in the open doorway of the house. His body is smoking like he's on fire, or recently been in a fire, and I realize his nice clothes are actually covered in soot and charred around the edges. His expression is blank, but he's staring right at me.

  "No," he says in a low, gravelly voice that I'm guessing is raw from either yelling a lot or maybe smoking too much. "You're done." He doesn't scream the phrase at me, but just says it simply like it's a matter-of-fact.

  And then three things happen almost at once. He blinks slowly. I don't know why my attention is draw to his brown, hooded eyes, but they are. There is very little emotion behind those eyes (I've heard they are supposed to be the gateway to the soul, and if that's true then this man has a very empty one.) as they slowly close and reopen.

  As the darkness of his pupils reappear from behind his eyelids, I hear a very distinct click come from somewhere near his belt. That's when I notice the thing I hadn't been paying attention to since the guy's surprising arrival: the large shotgun in his hands down next to his hip. Hindsight tells me that I shouldn't have been so dead set on ignoring the darkness and what it wanted to tell me. That may have been a fatal mistake.

  A mesmerizingly beautiful blossom of flame erupts from the end of the shotgun's muzzle, and I have just enough time to realize what is going to happen and try to move to the side to avoid it. He is no more than a dozen feet from me, and I know no amount of inner darkness can get me moving fast enough to dodge what is coming. This is going to hurt. A lot.

  Or maybe it isn't going to hurt at all. Maybe this will stop all the hurt from ever happening again.

  As the first molten pellets from the blast begin to tear through my skin, I give in to the darkness and will it to save me. Its warmth floods up through my gut in a race against the heat from the lead now entering my body.

  This is a race I'm not destined to win, though.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  The pain is nearly intolerable. I'm on a street in the middle of the city, and I survived both of the blasts from the shotgun, but I don’t think I will for much longer. The darkness got me out of the house and away from the dark man with the gun, but I paid for it. I didn't have enough energy to safely attack him and take him down, so I opted to just flee and get away. Unfortunately his second shot hit me in the legs as I was running across the house's front lawn. I was far enough way that the impact didn't incapacitate me (Thank goodness the gun was sawed-off and had a short spread, or I'm sure that final shot would have crippled me.), but it certainly did chew me up.

  Gingerly, I run my hand down my right side and feel the open, bloody gore that used to be my ribs and lower abdomen. It's bleeding, and there's not enough of me there to even be able to clot it. I shouldn't be able to walk right now, but I'm too stubborn to lie down and die in the street. I won't give him that satisfaction.

  I will make it to my warehouse. I will crawl into my closet, and I will finally give up this fight with as much dignity as I can muster. I'm proud of what I accomplished in the last few days. I was starting to make a difference. If I had more time, then I know I could have run them out of our city.

  But I don't have more time. I just have enough to get home (My new home, not my real home. That home is gone to me now.) and embrace the last darkness I'll ever have to worry about.

  Pulling at the dark hunger in me one last time, I use it to fuel me the last several blocks until I can see the warehouse and get inside.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Darkness envelopes me both inside and out. I've made it. The rectangular shape of the closet I've come to know and love blocks out all the light, so I can finally die in peace. The dark hunger that I have come to hate so much for what it causes me to do has helped me get here. Now, though, I don't have the energy to push it away, so I just let it burble up and flow through me. I know it wants an outlet, it wants to suck the living life blood from another creature because it doesn't want me to die, but I have trapped it in this room and others are safe. It tried to pull me off course on the way to the warehouse, but I wouldn't let it. The stubbornness I inherited from my parents (They both vehemently claim it was the other one who gave me that trait.) finally served a purpose.

  I will starve here regardless of what the darkness wants. I have won this battle, and I no longer have any regrets.

  Closing my eyes, I give in completely to the dark hunger. It can have these last few moments; I don't need them.

  Something wet is on my face. I ignore it, but it's persistent.

  Go away, I think. I'm trying to sleep. The wetness pauses, but it doesn't go away. Instead it is joined by a whimpering sound. The whimper grows in intensity, and I burrow deeper into the darkness, so that I can ignore it.

  Something heavy is slowly lowered onto my chest and stays there. The whimper is coming from the weight, and some part of my brain tells me this should be important.

  I'll worry about it later, I tell myself.

  Lazzy! The thought rips me from the clutches of the darkness, and I claw my way back to a level of consciousness. No. He can't be here. Not with the darkness in control. I can't have that on me.

  With strength that I shouldn't have, I croak out, "lazzy. go away. i'm dying," and I force as much of my will into those words as I can. He must understand. He can't stay.

  My furry companion raises his head and looks at me and blinks. He stares into my eyes with his wonderfully, doggy multi-colored ones and blinks. I know he understands what I'm saying. I know it.

  I smile and say my last words, "i love you buddy." With that done, I give up holding on any longer. He knows and that's all I care about right now.

  And then my best friend in the world does something I will never forgive him for. Something that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Lazzy stands up, shifts his body closer to my eyes and lies down across my face. To be precise, he lays with his furry little neck across my mouth. He rests his throat against my teeth, and then I hear him sigh.

  The heat from his body flows across my cheeks. The pulse of his artery on my lips is intoxicating in ways I don't want to describe.

  The darkness roars back through me faster and stronger than I've ever felt before. I'm powerless to stop what happens next. All I can do is stop holding back the tears and weep as his body slowly goes limp against me.

  THE FINAL CHAPTER

  It has taken me nearly a month to regain enough strength to go into the world and begin hunting down the man who ended my life. The dark man with the shotgun in that house will die, and it will be by my hands.

  After waking up in the closet with my friend as a cold, furry, deflated blanket on me, I realized that he had sacrificed his life so that I could live. The energy he was able to give me was enough to stop my wounds from becoming mortal ones. The nutrients he gave to me (He really had become quite healthy over those last few weeks.) closed up the open holes I had and allowed my body to begin the mending process. It was a start, but it wasn't enough.

  When I finally awoke for good, I was ravenous and depressed; it turns out that isn't a good combination for me to be in. As I lay in my darkened closet, I could feel my body repairing itself, and it was far from a pleasant experience. The pain was good, though. It focused me, and it helped me set a goal: find the man who did this to me.

  After a full day of self-pity and bone-knitting, I could feel my body was in desperate need of energy again. I had used up everything Lazzy had given me, and I certainly wasn't going to stop with that and let his sacrifice be wasted. He died so that I could live, and if I was going to live then it was something I would fully comm
it to doing.

  Not being strong enough to walk on my own yet, I crawled around the warehouse's open areas (both inside and out) until I was able to surprise and capture enough rats, birds and stray animals to get myself standing. It wasn't a proud time for me, but I was motivated. Their life essence was simply a means to an end.

  As soon as I was able to walk (Well, walk is a bit of an overstatement. It was more of a lurching stumble than it was any kind of coordinated forward motion.), I took to the streets to take down larger prey. For the first time since this awful, cursed life began in that dark alley with that creepy, old man, I was willingly hunting other humans. Not drug dealers. Not criminals. Just random people who had the misfortune of being on the wrong street on the wrong night. I had made a choice, and I'd be damned if I cared what it meant for my soul.

  Don't judge me too harshly, yet. I didn't kill any of them (The first few times I drank, I almost couldn't stop myself from finishing them. Regardless of my personal desire, the darkness almost forced me to commit murder.); I just used enough of their blood to get stronger and then I would leave them and move on.

  During this time, though, I did discover that after I fed on them, my victims would have no memory of it. My attacks were always swift but gentle - I had no desire to hurt these innocents - and I learned that some chemical in my saliva would paralyze them and incapacitate them while I feasted. It was almost...pleasant. It helped assuage some of the guilt I felt about what I was doing. Once I had had my fill (or just enough to not kill them), it was just a matter of licking their wound and letting my saliva coagulate it. Waiting a few minutes (or blowing on it if I got impatient) would allow enough time to pass to almost completely heal the holes I had made in their skin. It was amazing, and it has continued to fascinate me no matter how many times I do it.