by Rob Shepherd
“Is that so?” He took two steps towards me and I booted him as hard as I could right in the junk. Eye Patch lifted off the ground from the force of the kick, toppled to the ground with a grunt, and vomited. “Does anyone else here feel they need to teach me a lesson?”
Twelve henchmen stood around, trading looks. Apparently I was above their pay grade, since they bolted out of the garage like it was on fire. That just left me and Eye Patch. He had gone fetal on the floor, but was coming around. All of his swagger was gone as he struggled onto his hands and knees.
“You got a cell phone?” I asked him. He responded by giving me the finger, so I pulled Laniatus from its scabbard and laid the flat of the blade over his neck.
Eye Patch laughed at me. “Go on, kill me. It’ll be nothing compared to what he’ll do.”
“Who said I was going to kill you?” I kicked him onto his back and sliced the strap on his eye patch. It fell away and I knelt down on his chest. “Last chance.”
A look of defiance and hatred was all he gave me, so, sighing, I stuck my thumb in the hole where his eye had been removed. While Eye Patch screamed I counted to three in my head and removed my hand.
“G-go fuck yourself,” he panted.
“Tsk tsk,” I scolded. “That’s not very nice language.” This time when I put my thumb in his eye socket, I applied a little force, and twisted.
“Fine,” he screamed. “I’ll give you anything!”
I removed my thumb. “Good, because I want you to give me your cell phone.”
“I-it’s in my j-jacket.”
“Thank you.” I went to where one of the goons had dropped his coat and rummaged through it. There was a little burner flip phone in his breast pocket. I flicked it open and dropped it on Eye Patch’s chest. “Now call your boss.”
Fear flashed through his one eye. “Wh-what? Why?”
“Because I want to talk to him. Are you going to do what I ask or not?”
His voice caught in his throat, but he punched in the number and held the phone up to me. It rang three times before a man’s cool voice answered it.
“What’s up?” It asked. “There better not be any problems with the shipment.”
“There’s one…”
The voice growled out several curses at me. “What the hell do you want?”
“You.”
Basilisk laughed at me. “What, you got a crush on me or something? Fine, I’ll tell you what, let’s meet. Tonight. You want me, come get me.” He barked an address out at me and hung up.
“Thanks for your cooperation,” I said to Eye Patch, punching three numbers into his cell phone.
I babysat him until the sounds of sirens and flashing blue and red lights reached me. He got up and tried to run at the last second, but collided with my fist and fell over in a daze. I slipped out the back, through an alleyway, and onto a rooftop via fire escape. The police efficiently disposed of Eye Patch and the massive shipment of Stone. Pleased, I set out to the address Basilisk had given me on the phone, fully expecting a trap.
Arriving at the pier shrouded in darkness, I observed what Basilisk had in store for me. Honestly, I wasn’t that impressed. There were guards posted around yet another warehouse, but they were just standing casually around. The whole place had a very calm vibe. It was insulting. I mean, they knew I was coming. One guard was actually sitting with his feet in the water playing a Gameboy.
I came up on him unaware, but he didn’t even flinch when I got right next to his ear and shouted, ‘Boo!’
He sniffed at me, clearly unimpressed. “Yeah, yeah, he’s expecting you, go ahead in.”
“Wait, that’s it? No opposition at all?”
The guy just looked at me like I was slow. “You dumb? I said he was expecting you, so go ahead in.”
For whatever reason, this whole concept just wasn’t registering. “I know he’s expecting me, but I thought that he’d try and have you guys bring me in bound and begging.”
That got a sincere laugh from the guard. “You really don’t know who you’re dealing with, huh? Just go in there so Basilisk can deal with you and we can resume our business as usual.”
His attitude had me feeling very slighted, and being the petty creature I am, I grabbed his Gameboy and tossed it into the water.
“Hey what the hell, man!” He called after me as I walked away.
Guards looked indifferently at me as I passed, no longer bothering to conceal myself. The warehouse was bright, light pouring out of the many windows and open cargo door. I swaggered in like I owned the place, fully armed and armored, with no idea what to expect.
Sitting at a large concrete desk was the man that could only have been Basilisk. He stood up and walked around his desk to sit casually on the front of it. Imposing didn’t quite cut it as a descriptor. He was a big guy, easily six foot five, in a smart pinstriped suit. A large golden chain hung down over his partially open shirt, and a thick bandana was wrapped around his shaved head. Grey eyes looked critically over me from head to toe, and Basilisk pushed a chair out for me to sit in with his foot.
“I think I’ll stand,” I said using an amount of politeness that was unheard of for me.
“Suit yourself,” Basilisk replied. His voice was much deeper in person. “So, the White Knight is it? What can I do for you? I’m assuming you want me to shut down my business since you’ve been doing everything you can to throw a wrench in the gears. Unfortunately I’m not going to do that, it’s nothing personal, my Stone is just much too profitable. So, the way I see it you have two options. You can either stop doing what you’re doing and continue to live, or I can simply kill you.”
“And what makes you think you could kill me?”
He smiled wickedly. “I love when people ask me that.” Answering Basilisk’s shrill whistle, one of his guards rushed in. “What makes me know I can kill you is something very matter of fact.” Untying his bandana, Basilisk unwound it from his head and the color drained from his guard’s face. A third eye that took up the majority of Basilisk’s forehead opened up, and once it met with the guard’s gaze, he turned to stone.
There was no way I looked impressed, but that was mostly because I wasn’t. Basilisk clearly thought it was an act and smiled at me arrogantly.
“Is that it?” I asked.
Still smiling, he looked at me. “Not impressed? I guess you won’t stop this little crusade of yours then.”
“I’m not planning on it, no.”
“Then you choose death.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Basilisk sighed. “It doesn’t have to end like this you know. I haven’t gotten to where I am today by not being able to recognize talent, and I’ve gotta say kid. You’ve got it. Nobody has given me as much trouble as you, and I mean nobody. Believe me, a lot of people have tried, and a few had even become a thorn in my side, but they all went down, every one of ‘em. I’d hate to see you go the same way, especially when you could just be so damn useful.”
“Before I say yes, I have to know, how do you make the Stone?”
The criminal smiled from ear to ear. “It’s really quite simple. My unique – gift – is the key. We shoot people up full of everything we can find.” He pulled a drawer out from his desk and produced a chisel and hammer. “Then,” he put the chisel to his petrified guard’s head, “poof.” He brought the hammer to the chisel.
One very large crack formed in the head and quickly spread throughout the rest of the statue. It crumbled to the floor. “Some sort of reaction really intensifies everything in their system when they get turned. Makes the drug as desirable, and rare, as it is. We crush it up a little finer than this. You already know that though, you’ve taken enough of my product. Have you tried any?”
“Oh,” I said coolly. “No, drugs aren’t really my scene.” I sat down in the previously offered chair, and leaned back in it, comfortably draping an arm over the back.
“You should try it sometime, you might like it.”
> “I’ll keep that in mind. How many people go into one of your shipments?”
He shrugged. “The one you ruined tonight was probably about twenty or thirty people. But that’s nothing compared to the stash we’ve got here.”
“Twenty or thirty people,” I said, trying to sound impressed. “Where’d you get them all?”
“It’s not too hard. Hand a drifter a fifty dollar bill here, an illegal a hundred. And of course, my enemies. They tend to be the most potent batches, since I really juice them up before, shall we say, turning them. No one really misses them, and if anyone does, the police have bigger problems than a missing bum.”
Not the brightest man I’ve ever dealt with. After all, he had just told his admitted enemy every facet of his manufacturing process. Hubris is a wonderful thing to find in your opponent.
“People like you?”
That arrogant smile came back to his face. “Exactly. But keep in mind there’s no one else like me.”
“Sure there are,” I replied with a calm chill. “Your mother was a gorgon who probably seduced some poor sucker and then turned him to stone. Unfortunately for you, unlike a couple of the others I’ve met, you didn’t come out female, and therefore not a pure bred. So your mother threw you away. You still got that fun eye to play with though, and congrats, you found a way to profit from it. But please, correct me if I’m wrong.”
His two eyes went wide as he stared in open shock at me. “Who are you?”
“I’m a guy that knows way more about the scary side of the world than you do. I’m also the guy who doesn’t put up with the murder of what has to now be nearly a thousand innocent people.
Basilisk didn’t respond, but started to open his gorgon’s eye. It wasn’t quicker than a trained Knight of the Realm. The can of bear mace I had on my belt sprayed over one hundred feet, so I didn’t even have to get up to nail him with it.
My recent nemesis shrieked and clutched at his eye as it refused to open. I locked the door, and moved his desk in front of it as quickly as possible. It only happened just in time as guards started pounding on the door. Basilisk was dancing around in pain, trying to open his eyes, but only managing to snot and drool. Taking him down was as simple as putting my foot out in front of him and letting him trip. He crashed to the floor, hitting his head hard.
Rolling him onto his back with an armored toe, I planted a knee firmly on his chest. All three of his eyes were red and swollen. “You understand that you’ve lost, right?”
He took a swipe at my head, but came nowhere close to connecting. Basilisk was scum. A drug dealer, murderer, and general skid mark on society. There was nothing in my heart but disdain for the man pinned under my knee. This being the case, I reached down with one hand to force his third eyelid open. Carefully not making eye contact with it, I got my other hand around Basilisk’s only real weapon, and just like he’d done to his lieutenants, ripped it out of his skull.
There was no cry, no scream; the pain forced him immediately unconscious. Just to make sure that even after what I’d just done Basilisk would still have no power, I stripped him naked and put his thumb in his mouth. Guards were still pounding on the door, and the occasional bullet even ripped through it, but they didn’t get near enough to be a threat. The desk came away with an effort, and the door flew open, Basilisk’s men pouring through.
They rushed right passed me as I stood off to the side, and stared openly at their leader. I slipped quietly through the door while they tried to figure out what happened and what to do. Punching 911 into the phone I’d taken from Basilisk’s pocket, I began walking. My duty done, I went to the nearby water and took a few moments to sit. The cell phone and Basilisk’s eye splashed as they hit the water and my moment of rest was over.
I stood up, stretched, and walked off into the cold night air. There was still work to be done somewhere.
Andrew Katz is a young Author based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His story, “The White Knight”, takes place shortly after his novel, “Descendants”, also published by CHBB. He is a prototypically introverted young man, prone to hours of scheming on how to take over the world with his sidekick, Pinky.
I Believe in Mary Worth
By Zoe Adams
Cassie leant back against Gavin’s legs as the blonde bimbo on the television screen crept through the woods. As she crunched on the twigs that littered the ground, Cassie dipped her hand into the crisp bowl balancing on her knees, munching in unison. She laughed through a mouthful of crisps, as the B-movie actress screamed with fright at an owl.
“Jesus, what are we even watching? I mean this is cheesy, even by my standards,” Katie asked, scratching the cat’s ears.
“Friday the 13th.”
“Michael, right?”
“No!” Cassie exclaimed, throwing a handful of crisps at Katie’s head. “Jason Voorhees, you dickhead!”
Katie shrieked as the crisps snapped on impact, littering her shirt with crumbs. Pepper, the cat, arched its back and leapt from the black leather sofa. It prowled restlessly, before curling itself up on the fluffy white hearthrug.
Cassie sighed and shook her head. She raised the plastic bowl high, offering it to Gavin. He muttered his thanks, took a handful and went back to staring at the screen.
Happy fucking birthday Cass, she thought, reaching for her Stella Artois. One bottle won’t hurt.
She took a swig and closed her eyes, the strong liquid clinging to the back of her tongue, while the film’s score filled her ears. Those high pitched screams, that menacing beat… Hell, even Katie’s odd squeal of panic was good enough for her at this point. It was all she had to cling to at the moment, even though she longed to be sinking a few Jägerbombs in Old Lloyds. But of course, with these new pills, she couldn’t do anything fun.
Condensation slid down the outside of the bottle onto the paper label, which was already starting to peel. She smiled at it grimly.
“I’m confused!”
“What’s to be confused about?” Cassie asked, turning to face Katie, moving the bowl to the laminated floor.
Katie shifted on the sofa, stretching out her long legs. She stared blankly at the screen for a minute, chewing her bottom lip.
“I thought he had his mask in this.” She pointed a chipped fingernail at the screen.
“He’s not even in this until the very end. He doesn’t get it until the third film. He takes it off one of his victims and he’s had it ever since.”
“Macabre when you think about it,” Gavin said, cracking his knuckles. Cassie shuddered – no matter how often she told him not to, he still did it. “Kind of like that guy who kept skulls and dicks… Dahmer.”
“Dahmer?” Cassie asked, the same time Katie asked, “Dicks?”
Gavin hauled himself from the chair, and made the short journey into the kitchen. The girls heard him open the fridge.
“Grab us one, will you Gav?” Katie called.
The bottles clinked against each other and a rustle came from the cupboards. When Gavin returned, he had a bottle of Budweiser in each hand, while a bag of fun size Mars bars hung from his mouth, like a six foot dog.
He released his grip on the bag, letting the chocolates fall with a clatter into the crisp bowl, sending chunks and crumbs flying all over the living room. Pepper hissed and spat in anger, before leaping onto one of the chunks and tossing it into the air.
“Least someone found it funny,” Cassie grumbled, throwing more crisps for Pepper to chase. “Anyway, who’s Dahmer?”
“And what do dicks have to do with anything?” asked Katie, as she gratefully took her beer.
Gavin settled himself in the armchair, swigging from his bottle as he did so.
“American serial killer. Killed seventeen guys. Well actually he did more than kill them…” Gavin paused. “He drugged them, had sex with them and murdered them. Then he cut up the bodies and kept stuff, like their heads and dicks. Like a trophy kind of thing. Like Jason kept his mask.”
Cassie mimed being sick.
“That’s fucking gross!”
“No, Mary Worth’s gross. She was probably as twisted as Dahmer, maybe even more…” Katie said, her voice above a whisper.
Cassie rolled her eyes.
“Come off it Katie, you don’t really believe that, do you? It’s just a story to tell kids at Halloween to keep them from bugging old Mrs. Carr down the road!”
“It’s true though. Mary Worth killed her babies!” Katie leaped from the sofa, sliding across the floor. She flung open one of the heavy curtains and craned her neck to the right. “Cass, she killed them three doors down from you! How can you not be scared shitless?” Her entire body was shaking.
Gavin finished his drink, burping loudly. Putting the bottle on the end table, he reached for the remaining snacks. The tattoos across his knuckles seemed even more threatening than usual.
“Rumour is that when you say you believe in her, to a mirror or something, well, it makes her come to you. And then… she takes your eyes,” Gavin whispered conspiratorially.
Cassie glowered at him.
“I’m not scared because I don’t believe in it, or Mary Worth. It’s all make believe Katie,” she said calmly. “Just sit your arse and finish your Stella.”
“Make believe?” Gavin mocked. “Tell that to the kids she killed.”
“She didn’t kill anyone, it’s a fucking story at the end of the day!” Cassie shouted in disbelief, thumping her small fists on the floor.
Silence fell over her friends. Katie bowed her head, and slunk back to her seat on the sofa. Gavin, ripped open the sweet bag, sliding a whole mini Mars into his mouth. Pepper snored gently on the hearthrug.
“Sorry, but I just don’t believe it. No one in their own mind would ever kill their own kids. Yeah, okay, Mum says she’ll knock Anthony into next week sometimes, but I know her. She just wouldn’t.”
Gavin’s lips smacked together unpleasantly. You know what Gavin? You’re a fucking pig sometimes, Cassie thought. As he cleared his throat, chocolate coloured spittle hit her bare forearms, and she shuddered in repulsion.