The Wrath of David

by Sean-Paul Thomas

  All three men began sniggering and laughing. David forced himself to join in the hilarities, even though it was killing him inside. He wanted to end these people where they stood and sat.

  Louise also remained calm, quiet and un-reactive even though it was eating her up inside that they lived in a society where it was more than acceptable for narrow-minded, racist bigots to speak freely and openly about their bile and hatred of all human beings who had a different skin colour or used English as a second language. To relieve some of the pent-up frustration she was feeling, Louise squeezed the handle of the flick knife in her pocket.

  “But you should really have that thing on a leash when you're on the move around these parts, pal,” continued scar face. “We're not as strict as the towns and cities, but we do have our own rules and regulations about transporting cattle without a leash or any kind of restraint.”

  “Trust me. She's well-trained, and she won't be going anywhere without my say so, that's for sure,” David reassured the beady-eyed, scar-faced man. “So ... any chance of seeing this phone?”

  Scarface spat casually onto the ground before smiling. “Sure thing, pal. It's just inside. But your pretty little bitch stays out here, mind.”

  David glanced at Louise. Without any of the others witnessing, he gave her a quick reassuring wink. Louise nodded back at him with a trusting gaze before turning her attention to the warm tarmac beneath her feet.

  “Jonny and Rab here will keep a real good eye on her ‘til you get back, won't you boys?” Scarface said with a snigger. The two older men seated at the chess table nodded like a pair of donkeys before grinning smugly at Louise, who was still trying her hardest to not look anyone else in the eye.

  “No bother there, Franko,” the oldest and dirtiest looking of the two older men replied.

  David followed Scarface, the one they'd called Franko, into the garage shop. As David entered, he noticed that the shelves were lightly stocked with basic foods like oats, meats, eggs, homemade bread and flour, and bottles of milk, water and homemade beers and whiskeys.

  Franko turned back to David and offered him his hand. “I'm Franko, by the way.”

  David shook his hand. "David" he replied.

  Franko led David towards the main counter.

  “You still use this place as a store, then?” David enquired.

  “Now and again, aye. But the rations here are pretty much for us on the farm. As you can imagine, business ain't so good as it used to be, ha. But we do have other ways of making ends meet, if you know what I mean,” said Franko with another irritating chuckle and sly wink.

  David glanced through the shop window behind the counter and out at the large group of slaves working in the fields. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that they all seemed to be digging up the dirt and softening the soil.

  “Is that all the slaves you have here?”

  “That's all the men we have, aye. Keep the females over in the cottage cellars for evening amusements, if you catch my drift. Proctor on the next farm has about 50 male slaves, but zero females. So, of course, he'll send some of his good men down to us when the need arises for a little bit of business relief, if you catch ma drift.”

  David gritted his teeth and did his best to nod in agreement at the irritating little arrogant Franko who was now fuelling his rage and hate towards him, ten fold.

  “The females are a rare commodity over here now and therefore in such high demand,” Franko continued. “As you no doubt well know. Most of them took their own lives when they couldn't get out of the country quick enough They preferred that to being enslaved by their superior masters.” Franko gave another ridiculous grin.

  “You got much security here?” David asked, casually changing the subject. The man liked to talk a lot, so David didn't think he'd have any trouble getting an informative answer.

  “Just my three supervisors out back and us three over here. That's all we need, really, with the guns and all my man.” Franko hesitated as he eyed David up and down. “Why? You looking for some work here, big man? Just between you and me, pal, I could get you a pretty tasty wee price with some of the boys from the other farms for a few merry-go-round rides with your wee Princess Jasmin out there.”

  Unseen by Franko, David clenched his fists until his knuckles turned pure white, just as he’d done in the forest when he'd stood helplessly by and watched the refugee hunters act as they damn well pleased amongst their prisoners. He had to tap into his old army resolve and willpower to stop himself from dropping the ignorant, arrogant, racist prick right where he stood.

  “Oh yeah,” David calmly replied. “How much could I get for her, do you reckon?”

  “For that lovely creature? Let's put it this way, my friend. You need never grow hungry, thirsty or wanting for fuel as long as you shall live. Well, as long as she stays in good health and condition, that is.” Franko gave him another ridiculous toothless grin and wink.

  “Is that so,” David pondered out loud, pretending to be deeply considering the offer. Instead, he was envisioning this annoying little man's very last painful, gurgling breath, with David’s huge hunting knife buried deep in his throat.

  Franko patted David on the shoulder and turned back to the counter. He took the land phone from the opposite side and passed it over. David took the receiver and held it against his ear. He could hear an extremely faint dial tone. David raised his hand to the dated dial pad. He was about to type in the number he had memorised, the one John had given him back on the Isle of Man, when Franko swiftly placed his hand on top of his to stop him.

  “First things first, pal. We got to negotiate a price, big man, you know.”

  “And what exactly is the going rate for a phone call these days ... Franko?”

  Franko unleashed that dirty, filthy grin of his. He glanced past David and out the front window towards Louise. Outside, his two older chums stood right beside her now, hovering uncomfortably close to her.

  “Say ... one hour with your peaches and chocolate cream out there. That should just about cover the overheads.”

  “Why don't we call it a half hour?” David shot back at him with his own friendly wink. “And no rough stuff, you hear? Well not above the neck.”

  They both chuckled hard at that. David was doing a great job of faking his rapport with Franko, who didn't have the slightest clue to what was coming next.

  “Jesus Man, you sure do drive one hell of a hard sale. But aye, a man can do a lot in half an hour, no doubt about it.”

  Franko chuckled again. David smirked too as he gripped the handle of his knife even harder. If he acted now, it would be over in seconds. He tried to start dialling the number again, seeking to distract his violent thoughts.

  “Who you calling anyhow, pal?” Franko asked.

  David gave him a cold, hard stare as his expression turned to one lacking any kind of emotion. In that instant, he broke all the trust and rapport he'd recently spent building up with the scar faced man.

  “Where do I start, Franko?” David casually answered. “Immigration ... human rights.”

  “Human ... what?” Franko replied, looking baffled.

  Suddenly, in a rip-roaring flash, David pulled out his hunting knife and rammed the 12-inch razor-sharp blade right up and underneath Franko's flabby chin, embedding the blade all the way into his lower jaw and inserting it into the majority of his head.

  Franko's expression suddenly froze in a half-gasping, half-twitching look of utter shock and horror. He began coughing and spluttering blood within seconds, and the more he did, the worse his wounds became. Soon more blood oozed out from his mouth. David then twisted the knife from underneath his jaw. Any light left in Franko's eyes rapidly faded into oblivion. As his lifeless body fell to the ground, David caught Franko in his arms. He held him close for a second before gently lowering him to the now blood-stained floor, not wanting to create any noise or attention until he was fully ready for it.

  After Franko’s body was laid on the gro
und, David stood up and made a swift glance through the back window this time. The curious female guard who had noticed both him and Louise arriving only a few minutes earlier, was now approaching the back end of the garage. To David's relief, she was still a few dozen yards away.

  David turned his attention back towards the front window, where the two sleazy middle-aged men were eerily circling Louise like a pair of starving hyenas. One of them had raised his hand to Louise's arm and was stroking it lightly, gently caressing her.

  “Don't be scared, wee lassie,” said the first man with a disgusting toothless grin. “We just want a wee little feel of the goods before we buy and try.”

  “My God, you are one pretty wee thing,” said the second man.

  With her hands still in her pockets, Louise kept her head bowed and her eyes firmly on the ground while secretly praying for David to firmly boot his plan – if he indeed had one – into kick arse action. Sooner rather than later.

  “Hey wee girl ... do you speak English?” asked the second man.

  Louise took a firmer grip of the flick knife deep inside her pocket. Even though she was doing a much better job than she thought possible of being totally unreactive to the two creepy older guys circling around her, she swore to herself that if either one of them went for a feel of her breasts or in between her thighs, she'd stab the fucker where he stood and suffer the consequences after. She'd never killed or hurt anyone in her life, but she'd never envisioned someone's death so clearly before either, like she was doing right then, in that very moment. The tension was rapidly building inside her to a boiling point, when suddenly it all evaporated as David, looking very convincing in his new panicked state of mind, hurled opened the shop door.

  “Guys, guys?” David cried out. “Jesus Christ! You gotta come quick. It's Franko. He just ... he just fucking collapsed on the floor, man. Fuck.”

  The two men pried their eyes from Louise and turned to face David as he held the shop door open for them, beckoning the two to come inside and assist their friend in need. Of course, they both threw caution to the wind and rushed over at once.

  “What the fuck happened?” the first man cried.

  “Looks like he had some kind of fit,” David continued, still holding the door wide open for them to enter and see for themselves.

  Both men rushed inside, one after the other. David tripped the first man as he whizzed on by. He fell to the ground like a huge sack of potatoes. David then grabbed the second man around the neck as he bolted into the shop right behind his friend. David stabbed him ferociously in the back of the spine, three times in a row, deep, hard and fast. He then sliced the man's throat, deep against the neck bone, from one side of his neck to the other, without even hesitating.

  The first man, still on the shop floor and lying on his stomach after his fall, turned, dazed and confused, to see just how the hell he'd managed to end up there. His eyes soon fell upon a manic David, ripping, stabbing and slashing his friend to pieces before throwing his bloodied and unrecognizable corpse to the floor like a rag doll.

  The first man gave a knowing smile and instinctively went for his gun. The way David was standing, so open and exposed, it would be the easiest kill he'd had in a long time. His dirty, cocky grin soon evaporated, though, when he found his gun missing from the inside of his belt.

  David glanced coolly down at the man while pointing his missing gun directly into his not-so-smug-anymore face. With his blood-smeared face and a raging, insane, animalistic glint in his eyes, David looked more fearsome than the devil himself.

  “You looking for this, my friend?” David asked with a wicked grin.

  “You motherfucker,” the man roared from the pit of his stomach.

  In a bout of rage, David pounced like a panther onto the man, pinning him down to the shop floor. He began punching him in the face, over and over, until every tooth in his mouth had been smashed down his bloodied, rancid, racist throat. When the rage finally lifted, David stopped. He gathered his breath and held his knife hard against the barely conscious man's throat.

  Back outside the garage, Louise stepped up to the glass door and cautiously glanced into the store. She tried to keep a calm head when she saw all the blood, carnage and dead bodies inside. She saw David sitting astride one of the men.

  Suddenly Louise noticed movement from the corner of her eye. It was coming from around the other side of the garage. Swiftly, she glanced at the female guard, who had just caught her eye from the back of the garage less than 50 yards away.

  Inside, David still had the first man pinned to the floor with his knife held firmly against his throat. “How many more of you are in those cottages out there?” David raged.

  The man, dazed and beaten, shook his head before spitting one of his broken teeth up into David's face. “Thuck you,” he mumbled with a new speech impediment through his broken gums.

  “There must be more of you guarding the women in the cottages?”

  The man tried to scream for help, spraying more blood and bits of broken teeth at David. David was way too fast for him, though, and quickly slashed his throat all the way through his voice box like scraping a hot knife through butter. Blood gurgled and spurted from his wound just as Louise burst into the store. Instantly, she turned away from the horrific scene and covered her eyes when she saw all the gurgling blood coming from the dying man underneath David.

  “Holy shit, David. Jesus bloody Christ,” Louise cried, still protecting her eyes from the shock.

  David turned his head towards her. “First you complain when I don't do anything. Now you complain when I do.”

  “No, it's not that. I'm sorry ... it's just ... all the bloody blood. It's like a fucking horror movie in here.”

  “You didn't think it was going to be all sunshine and rainbows now, did you?” David said with a menacing grin. For one brief moment, Louise was grateful that David was fighting with her and not against her.

  “What the hell kind of crazy shit did they make you do in the army anyhow? Jesus,” Louise asked, still not believing how quickly and stealthily David had dispatched of the three men.

  “Who said I learned how to do any of this in the army?” David responded with a knowing wink and smile.

  Louise shook her head to clear her tainted thoughts. She was forgetting the main reason she'd stepped inside this place of death. “Look,” said Louise, interrupting her own thoughts. “Someone's coming, David. A woman ... with a big fucking gun strapped to her side, too.”

  David stood slowly up from the mutilated corpse beneath him. He wiped some of the blood away from his face before gazing outside. The menacing woman with the machine gun was close now and had her gun ready in hand, too.

  “Lovely. More friendly faces.” He turned back to Louise. “We need to get her inside without her firing a single shot. If she fires, the rest of them will come, no doubt about it. The odds won't be in our favour for much longer after that.”

  “Well, how the hell is she not gonna fire when she sees all this fucking blood and carnage?” Louise said in a panic. Her eyes bulged as she gazed around the room again at all the blood and dead bodies.

  “Louise,” David said as clear and calm as he possibly could. “Come over here and do exactly as I say.”

  Chapter 18

  The female guard cautiously approached the front entrance to the garage store. She raised her small Uzi machine gun above her chest as she took a quick aiming glance inside.

  “Everything all right in there, Franko?” the female guard called out in a light Scottish accent. Because of the lack of light inside the store, the woman couldn’t see all the smears of blood across the dark floor, right away. David had done a good job of dragging all the bodies out of view of the doorway. So anyone peering in from the outside would need to physically enter into the store to get a good look at what had happened in there. When no one responded to the woman's calls, she tried again. “Franko, Rab, Jonny? What the fuck is going on in there? Answer me, ye bastards
.”

  Again, no one replied. The woman was about to back away when she heard Louise's sobs coming from inside the store. Slowly but surely, the woman stepped up to the main entrance again. This time she pushed open the glass door with the barrel of her gun and stepped inside.

  Immediately, she gasped when she saw the dead bodies of four men lying all over the right-hand side of the shop floor. She then whipped her attention to the sobbing Louise who was sitting, covered in blood herself, and huddled up against the main counter, clutching her leg.

  The shocked guard took a few more steps inside. She pointed her gun firmly at Louise. “What the fuck happened here? Is that Franko and wee Jonny? What the fuck happened?”

  The woman glanced down at the other two bodies, closer to the front door. One of the bodies was David's seemingly lifeless and bloodied figure.

  “I'm sorry,” Louise said, sniffing and sobbing. “When they couldn't agree on a price for me, they just ... they just all started fighting and hurting each other. I think my leg is hurt, too.”

  The woman stepped closer towards Louise, still pointing her gun directly at her, a sneering look of hate and disgust smeared all over her face. “Ah dinnae give a flying fuck aboot your leg, ye silly wee whore. What the fuck happened tae ma Franko ... oh, Franko,” the woman said, whining now and crouching over Franko's dead, mutilated body.

  Without making a sound, David slowly stood up from behind the woman. He took a couple of quiet, gentle steps towards her. Then, quick as a flash, he yanked her hair back from her crouched position on the floor before digging the barrel of his newly acquired handgun into the side of her head.

  “Drop the gun.”

  The shocked woman yelped in pain. She dropped her gun immediately. David motioned for Louise to pick it up. He then tucked his handgun into the back of his trousers again, right beside the second one he'd taken.

  “You's are all gonnie fucking hang for this,” the woman spat venomously at David, who swiftly retaliated by punching her square across the jaw, so hard, in fact, that she bit her tongue and dribbled blood from her mouth as she landed on the floor.