Better to Die a Hero

by Michael van Dagger

  Steve stepped out onto the roof. “Oh God, I thought this was over.”

  Bryan held one of the hooligans by the throat letting him thrash violently over the buildings edge. He grabbed one of the man’s legs, hosted him high overhead and threw him off the building.

  “No!” Steve tackled Bryan at the waist taking both of them to the hard surface. “This isn’t you. You don’t believe in killing people.” He lifted his head to look Bryan in the eye. Bryan pushed with his legs and Steve went airborne. Steve twisted mid air and landed on his feet; he pivoted sharply and faced his friend.

  Bryan was already standing, fists clenched. “I am doing God’s work here!” He stomped forward.

  “God’s work, you always said only God could judge and here you are killing people.”

  “I am really getting tired of having to make things simple for your dumb ass.” Bryan stepped toe to toe with Steve. “God is judging them, and I am God’s instrument.”

  Steve stepped backed, this time more out of fear than the rancid breath blowing in his face. “Bryan it’s the powder, you’ve got to stop taking the powder. You look like a monster.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” he said, turning his back.

  “Where’s the powder? Is it in your coat?”

  Bryan spun around and tapped the breast pocket of the coat Steve had gifted him. “It’s right here and I’ll make you a deal. If you can take it, you can keep it.”

  “This is not you, the powder, it’s affecting your judgment, your personality, your face. Christ sake, you’re bald!”

  “I’m making a difference while you just sit around and watch.”

  “Bryan!” Steve yelled, “There’s a dead girl back there. You got a girl killed.” He forced both palms hard into Bryan’s chest, sending his friend back a foot. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Bryan cocked both arms and shot his palms at Steve’s chest. Steve dodged to the side and received a glancing blow to the chest that hurt like hell. He plunged a hand deep into the coat and frantically fumbled for the pocket. Bryan swung around with an elbow. It glanced off Steve’s head and he reeled back in pain.

  “Damn it Bryan, you’ve got to stop taking the powder.” He felt his scalp for damage.

  “I can’t!”

  “Yes you can.” Steve dove in for a tackle.

  Braced for the charge, Bryan absorbed the impact and wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist. He lifted his friend and twirled several times. He released and the embattled teenager rolled across the rooftop. “I can’t quit!” he yelled. “This is all I have. Without it I’m nothing.”

  Bryan spun and darted back the way they’d came. Steve stood up and followed, pushing hard to catch up. For thirty minutes they raced, Bryan pulling one building ahead then two and finally vanishing into the darkness.

  7

  BETTER TO DIE A HERO

  CHAPTER 15

  Morning not far off, Bryan wanted nothing more than to eat a big meal, curl up in the abandoned apartment he’d found and fall asleep. Still sensing the presence of his former friend, out there looking to stick his nose where it didn’t belong, Bryan prayed sleep would dull his perceptions and with it the anger dominating his every thought. He wanted to calm down, to think about something else, but his mind continuously reached out over the city detecting an essence belonging to Steve—to the betrayer. It was like a leash around his neck and it stretched out for miles, choking him every time the betrayer changed directions. Occasionally the tether vanished and tranquility ensued, but this peacefulness was short lived. The betrayer always reappeared pulling at him, cutting off his breath.

  A stuffed belly and a good day’s sleep would take care of the problem. He eased his way into a third floor window and tiptoed into the kitchen. Using an open refrigerator door to illuminate the modest surroundings, he searched the cabinets and drawers for comfort food. Anything with chocolate would due, but foremost on the list was a bag of chocolate chips—to make the end of a bad night palatable.

  * * *

  “Mommy… mommy…” the small boy whispered and tugged repeatedly at the blanket covering his mother, “there’s a troll in the kitchen.” He tugged several more times before the sleepy woman threw off her covers and put on her slippers.

  “Bobby,” she said, taking his hand, “there’s no such thing as trolls.” Tiredly she shuffled to the kitchen; Bobby stayed by the entrance. She yawned and closed the refrigerator door. “What were you looking for?” She pushed several drawers closed and removed a glass from the cupboard.

  Bobby stood petrified looking up at the monster stuck to the ceiling, hovering just feet above his mom’s head. His every word quivered, “There’s a troll in here.” The ghoulish creature looked down at him and raised a finger to its lips, shushing him.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, filling the glass with water, “I told you there’s no such thing as the bogeyman, monsters or trolls. Here you go honey.”

  He took a drink, spilt some, but never took his eyes off the troll.

  “Oh baby, you’re trembling.” She placed the glass in the sink. “Do you want to sleep in mommy’s room tonight?”

  Bobby managed an affirmative nod and took his mom’s hand. He looked back as they left the kitchen; the troll gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Mommy’s going to have to empty the garbage tomorrow, it’s getting stinky in there.”

  * * *

  Troll…The Troll, Bryan thought. He quietly dropped and resumed searching for chocolate. The name rolled easily off the mind. Pleased at the absence of the betrayer’s essence tugging at him like he was some disobedient dog, Bryan worked quickly knowing that any moment the creep could move back into range and jerk hard enough on the invisible harness to make him vomit right there in the little boy’s kitchen. Not the calling card he wished to leave. Disappointed at finding no chocolate treats or even candy, he tied a pan of lasagna and a gallon of milk up in his coat.

  He slipped into the living room and stuffed two worn pillows into the makeshift knapsack. This nice kid and his mother were poor; He would pay them back.

  Bryan crawled out the window with his dinner and noted the apartment’s location before jumping to the next building.

  Dawn arrived a few minutes before Bryan crawled through the window of his own apartment. He wasn’t worried about being spotted. The streets below were deserted and probably would be for another hour. The night owls, criminal or not, didn’t like the sun and it was too early for good citizens to be up. This is when the streets were at their most peaceful, the first hour of the day. The one drawback to his new face, daytime errands would be difficult. A large hooded sweatshirt and some well-placed bandages might do the trick.

  The small apartment wasn’t much to look at. The graffiti covered walls sported dozens of fist holes, trash lay piled in all corners and it looked to have been this floors dumping ground for broken appliances. Bryan made good use of the old stoves and refrigerators, by stacking them in front of the door making the hall entrance nearly impenetrable, at least to the low lives squatting the dilapidated fourth floor. With no furniture available, he sat on a heap of pillows and started in on the pasta meal. The two men living next-door began fighting again. The loud one, with the thick English or Australian accent, constantly ordered the other man around.

  It was good having the betrayer out of his head. He eavesdropped on his neighbors and could tell they were drug addicts, but that being no crime he focused on his meal and the name the little boy had spoken.

  “Troll,” he said.

  The title struck both an ominous and humorous tone setting the perfect balance. It would strike fear in the hearts of criminals, and yet little girls collected troll dolls.

  Action figure. Bryan grinned widely at the thought. He would have his own action figure called The Troll. He contemplated it no more. Ectoman is dead, long live The Troll. He raised his milk up high in toast then gulped a great quantity.

  Later, after draping the window as be
st as he could with one of the blankets donated to the cause, Troll washed down a dose of powder and tossed the empty lasagna pan into one of the trash-filled corners. He curled up in pillows and drifted into a blissful sleep.

  * * *

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  Troll opened his eyes to a thumping coming from the other side of the wall. “Damn, the betrayer.” He rubbed his temples and looked to the window. Daylight still showed through the makeshift drapes. The long mental leash was back this time exiting the top of his skull, pulling his temples tight causing them to throb.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  He took a deep breath and attempted to ignore the sensations leaving his head and the noise emanating from the nearby wall. He rolled to the side, closed his eyes and wished it all away. A rhythmic grunting grew audible just under the wall thumping and Troll grew angrier at the disturbances he endured.

  “Ah!”

  “Guur!”

  “Ah!”

  “Guur!”

  He’d viewed enough streaming videos over the Internet to recognize the sounds of sex, though something sounded off. Just wanting to sleep, he buried his grimacing face into a pillow.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  “Ah!”

  “Guur!”

  “Ah!”

  “Guur!”

  The grunting sped and he felt sick in the stomach; the guttural vocals were both male.

  The knocking and moaning ended abruptly.

  A thick accent filtered through the thin walls. “Wooo, that stinks.”

  The wall exploded; plaster and wood shot across the room taking both men by surprise, their naked bodies rolling the dirty floor in panic. A glimpse of the large mutation emerging from the white dust turned the rolling into a feverish crawl in the opposite direction. Pushed by an all-consuming anger, Troll snatched one of the men by the back of the neck, picked him up and ran him into the nearest wall. He pressed the gurgling man’s face to the wall, drew back a fist and shot it into the man’s lower spine. He drew back and again plunged his fist forward putting his shoulder and back into the punch. A sense of satisfaction ensued at the snapping of spine under fist; he tossed the body aside.

  The second man wet with offensive perspiration cowered in the corner. Too scared to scream he wailed a sickly tone and trembled uncontrollably. Troll raised a foot high and drove his heel into the back of the man’s neck as if he were flatting a cardboard box. With each stomp, the pain in his temples eased and he continued stomping until only a dull ache remained. The betrayer was still out there. Troll’s mind reached out past the confines of the room and touched the person he once called friend. This extraneous sensation was at least for the moment tolerable.

  He looked over his neighbor’s apartment; it proved little better than his own did. They did have some furniture he’d liked to have borrowed, but now that a large opening connected the two rooms, he thought it would be better used to block their door. He pulled over the couch first, tables second and chairs third, then constructed a barricade against the door.

  Not enough weight, someone might be able to push through.

  He picked up the body of the man with the crushed neck and placed it on top of the pile then strategically weaved the dead limbs among the chair legs.

  Still needs more weight.

  The other man fit nicely on top of the first.

  Satisfied with the structure Troll went back to his own apartment and curled up in pillows. He listened to the soft moaning of the man with the broken back. It reminded him of the family cat, when it would sleep at the foot of the bed lightly purring. That always helped him get to sleep.

  * * *

  The Troll awoke among an assortment of pillows, well rested and glad to see nightfall less than an hour away. The bite and gunshot wound did not hurt anymore and it appeared both were nicely healed. The fact he’d slept over twelve hours was of no concern, he probably needed the recuperation time; then again, maybe he was turning into a vampire. The thought sent him scrambling for the window. He leaned out and basked directly in the rays, no fire, no smoke, this was a good sign. The woman that had tracked him down, to her own demise, had stood at the end of the alley in broad daylight. Maybe he had his monsters mixed up. Maybe she was some genus of lycanthrope—a werewolf. In the heat of battle her fighting style resembled that of an animal, especially the way she’d rolled in biting his thigh. She couldn’t have been a smart monster or she’d have targeted his groin.

  I should check my teeth.

  He ducked back in and stepped through the hole into the neighbor’s apartment. His own bathroom mirror looked like it had been broken for years.

  “Don’t mind me guys, I’m just passing through,” he said to the heap of wood, fabric and flesh. Just as he’d guessed, their mirror not only in good shape was clean as well. He held a hand up curled like a bird’s talons and willed his hand to crackle, pop and form a claw like the woman’s—nothing happened. He snarled at his reflection, bared as many teeth as possible, growled into the mirror and mentally commanded his mouth to form the canine like structure he’d witnessed several days earlier—still nothing. Satisfied he ripped the mirror from the medicine cabinet and headed back to his own apartment.

  “Well guys,” he said, striding past, “you’ll be glad to know it doesn’t look like I’m turning into a monster.”

  Back in his own room Troll eyed the plastic container half full with milk. He popped the cap and sniffed its contents. “Crap.” It had soured. He chucked the milk through the mammoth hole in the wall he’d created that morning.

  Time to get down to business.

  He paced as he always did when devising a plan of action. This plan, unlike the strategies he’d conceived while leading a role-playing campaign with his friends, concerned real monsters. Monsters with ties to the fat albino he’d so courageously removed from public concern. The plan started with a trek across Central Park to the Italian neighborhood and then a few well-phrased questions to the right wise guys.

  “Son of a Bitch!” Troll grabbed at his temples as the headache he’d earlier suffered returned. He’d forgotten all about the betrayer and the nagging discomfort his proximity induced. “You are not following me tonight,” he said, diving out the window.

  Not bothering to hide in the shadows nor tread softly across the rooftops, Troll ran full tilt in the direction the leash pulled cutting the distance between he and the betrayer with every step. Apartment dwellers occupying the top floors were caught off guard, as pictures fell and china rattled at the thundering gait above them. Leaping over a large air-conditioning unit, Troll purposely over jumped then landed flatfooted sending as much energy into the roof as possible, not so much to wreak havoc in the apartment below as just to smash into something.

  “Hey, butthead!” Troll hollered at the barely visible figure jogging several hundred feet out. The face didn’t need to be seen, no identification had to be made, the leash sprouting from his mind arced out and landed right on the slow moving figure.

  * * *

  Steve stood tense, his friend bounded toward him like a jungle cat chasing down its dinner. Rapidly the figure charged with no signs of slowing down.

  “Oh man.” Steve threw himself back, thrust out his legs and caught Bryan’s midriff. Over Bryan flew, his face full of bumps and gritting teeth passing within inches of Steve’s own. The momentum carried the tall body across the alley, head first through a window. Shattering glass pierced the evening air. Within seconds, Bryan dove out the window and sailed back across the alley. He tucked and rolled to his feet.

  “Aaaaaaagh!” Blood flowed from a cut across the bridge of Bryan’s nose and dripped from his top lip. He circled Steve.

  “Calm down Ectoman.” He had almost used Bryan’s name but caught himself in time. “I’m taking you home.”

  “I don’t like you here,” he said, spitting out the blood filling his mouth. “I don’t like you following me, it hurts my head.”

  “You’re not yourself. I j
ust want to help you and you can help yourself by not taking any more powder.”

  “You want to steal the powder for yourself.”

  “That’s not true,” Steve said, “you’re my best friend. I just want to help you, I want things to go back to the way they were.”

  Bryan stepped forward. “You betrayed me!”

  “No.” Steve stepped back. “I tried to keep you from hurting people. That’s not you. You’re the kindest person I know, now you’re out here killing people.”

  “God is the judge, God is the jury, I am his instrument. I protect the innocent.”

  “You threw a guy off a five story building, I watched you.” Steve saw the anger fading from his friend’s face. “It’s not your fault, it’s the powder. You didn’t know what you were doing.” He stepped in and placed a hand on Bryan’s shoulder.

  Both teens turned to the sound of numerous feet falling out from the stairwell onto the tarpaper. Four men looked their direction. A muzzle blast lit up the night and Steve grabbed his side. It burned as if he’d been caned with a bamboo switch.

  “Let’s go,” Steve yelled, grabbing Bryan by the wrist. He dove off the roof into the alley pulling his friend along.

  Steve’s descent seemed to take forever; he straightened out and stuck the landing. Pain exploded from the gunshot wound and he grabbed his side. Bryan was nowhere in sight. Steve peered up six stories. Bryan was coiled flat to the side of the building just under the ledge.