Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks

by John Bruni

  Stacy and Wayne looked at each other and laughed. It felt good, better than either of them had felt in a long time.

  2

  Samuel stepped lightly on the stairs as he made his way to the first floor. He knew every step that creaked and avoided them, even though the others probably couldn’t hear him. The TV blared, and he could hear the conversation they were having.

  He walked along the wall as he headed to the parlor. Occasionally, he had to step around an exotic plant or ease around a large painting, but for the most part, he kept his trek straight and narrow. He wished this would end quickly. A bath, some relaxation and maybe some sex waited for him, but most importantly, he wanted to curl up in his bed and go to sleep . . . except he no longer had a bed, did he? Fuck. He’d have to stay the night in a hotel, then.

  He reached the parlor and saw the wide-open door. Poking his head over the threshold, he saw Wayne and Stacy on one of the couches, their backs to him, watching the TV. Some stupid cop show. A tall, skinny kid watched along with them, but he sat on the floor next to the couch. On the other couch, the one Elizabeth prided herself on owning, a punk girl rested, not unlike Skank. They’d wrapped her in so much gauze she looked like a mummy. A mummy with a lot of blood stains.

  Samuel saw a maid against a wall, bound and gagged, her eyes closed. She wouldn’t be a problem.

  The punk girl was the closest, and killing her would cause the most shock and confusion. He approached her with the shotgun aimed at her head, stepping with the silent ease of a ninja. The punk girl looked badly damaged, and he wondered if maybe he’d be doing her a favor.

  He thought using one barrel would be sufficient, and it would probably be smart, since the others would react very quickly. If they had guns, they might be able to nail him. But he had more guns, and he knew he could draw faster than them. Besides, two barrels would have a much more desirable effect.

  Smiling, he touched the shotgun into the girl’s belly and prodded her. When she didn’t respond, he pushed down into her gut harder, and her eyes shot open.

  She moaned, too lost in pain to comprehend Samuel.

  He smiled and shook his head, his eyes glued to hers, and he moved the barrels to her face. He gave her just enough time to realize his intentions, just enough time to draw a breath to scream, before he pulled both triggers, turning her head into a large, saturated smear on the remains of Elizabeth’s couch.

  3

  Kelly heard the shotgun blast on the third time he flushed the toilet. He’d been unleashing a horrible bout of diarrhea—probably because of the greasy fast food he’d had for dinner—and he couldn’t stop wiping his ass. As he gingerly wiped his burning poop chute, he wished he had a good snort of heroin to ease his pain, not just from the shits, but from the damage Skank had inflicted upon him. Hell, even a cigarette would help him now.

  He thought one more wipe would do the trick when he heard the explosion from the parlor. If he hadn’t just voided his bowels, he probably would have done so then and there.

  For a moment, he sat on the toilet, his thighs numb, deathly afraid to do anything. A shotgun blast sure as hell couldn’t be a good thing, no matter who pulled the trigger. Then, he remembered throwing the Molotov cocktail at the limo that had Skank and the others in it, making him responsible for the deaths of God knew how many of his friends. He had to do something to redeem himself.

  He yanked his pants up and ran for the door.

  4

  Wayne jerked, and Stacy yelped, instantly wetting her jeans. Both turned their heads in unison to see Samuel standing above the split pumpkin that had been Cooze’s head. They saw the shotgun, and both jumped to their feet, pressing their backs against the wall. Stacy wanted to go for her gun, but she knew she’d never make it. Samuel looked directly at her, almost daring her to draw down.

  Mange froze in place, staring at the remains of his wife. Her jaw still clung to her throat, as did part of her nose. Everything above that, including her eyes, had been replaced by bloody mulch. That couldn’t be his wife. She’d been lying on the couch, sure, but that couldn’t be her. Cooze had an entire head, not that pulpy mess.

  But he couldn’t deny it any longer. Her death finally sank into Mange’s head, and he screamed.

  “She looks prettier this way,” Samuel said. “No piercings, no stupid hair. Very nice. I’d fuck her.”

  “Cooze!” Mange screamed. He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his bony cheeks. Snot ran down his chin as his body shook, and he tried to call out her name again.

  Samuel’s smile vanished. “What did you call me?”

  “You killed Cooze!” Mange howled. He lurched to his feet, rushing toward Samuel with his fists raised. “I’ll fucking kill you, you mother—“

  He never finished his sentence. Samuel casually dropped the shotgun and drew his .44, pulling the trigger in one fluid motion. Mange took it in the chest—in the heart—and his back exploded out, shredded flesh and bone spraying the wall behind him. He collapsed in a pile, dead before he even knew it.

  Stacy saw her chance and reached for the butt of her gun, which poked out of the front of her jeans. She felt like a gunslinger, full of righteous fury, ready to put down the bad guy like a dog.

  But Samuel was too fast. He whirled on her, and she felt her blood freeze. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Samuel said.

  “Why not?” she asked. Her voice trembled so badly, she sounded like a nervous kid trying to give a speech to his class. “You’re gonna’ kill us anyway.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I just want to talk.”

  All three of them heard loud thumping sounds as someone ran toward the parlor. Stacy and Wayne both looked at Samuel, but he didn’t betray any notion that he’d heard the sounds as well.

  The two of them looked beyond the hunter and watched as Kelly appeared at the door, holding what looked like a bar from a towel rack. As soon as Kelly’s bandaged face had surveyed the scene, he began to creep up behind Samuel, holding the bar high.

  They tried their best to ignore him as Samuel continued:

  “It’s been quite the chase, but you two are the last, aside from Toby Munger. Did you know that? You came this close—“ He held his thumb and forefinger a half-inch apart. “—to getting the billion dollars. I have the power to make royalty of you paupers. Or I can make corpses out of you. And I’ll be honest: it sometimes helps to beg.”

  Kelly stood directly behind Samuel now. He pulled his arms all the way back for maximum force, but before he could start the downswing, Samuel straightened out his free hand, and a Derringer popped into his palm. Without looking, he aimed behind him and pulled the trigger, sending a tiny bullet into Kelly’s adam’s apple. He gagged, dropping the bar, and he clutched his throat, trying to get the blood to stop. It only forced the blood down his windpipe, and he started choking.

  Wayne couldn’t believe it. How could Samuel be that good?

  Samuel fired again, again without looking, and got Kelly through the eye. He dropped to his knees and fell to his face. He contemplated the bloody carpet for a moment before his life faded away like reception from a bad antenna.

  Stacy didn’t think Samuel could still be so focused on them in that moment. As soon as she saw him shift to draw out the Derringer, she yanked at the butt of her gun, ready to take advantage of the moment.

  It wouldn’t come out.

  The sight! It had hooked up on her jeans. She reached her other hand down the front of her pants to unhook it.

  Samuel, surprised by the audacity of this little girl, watched her for a moment, amused. Usually, when he shot a man behind his back, the move inspired fear and awe in onlookers, just like it had in Wayne. Not for Stacy Bartlett, though.

  She freed the gun and brought it up, firing wildly.

  Only once before had Samuel been shot, and that had been last year, when Edward had grazed his head with a bullet. Now, he felt another bullet, and this ti
me it slammed into the left side of his chest, knocking him back a couple of steps.

  ~

  “Holy hell,” Edward said. “She got him.”

  “Don’t count him out yet,” Coppergate said. “I don’t see any blood.”

  ~

  If this had been last year, Stacy’s bullet would have killed Samuel. But this year, he’d worn Kevlar, just in case. It hurt like a bitch, but it wouldn’t leave anything more damaging than a bruise. He also thought himself lucky. If he hadn’t been wearing armor, the bullet might have punched through his body and gotten the jet pack. He didn’t relish the idea of his insides decorating Elizabeth’s parlor.

  It took him a moment to catch his breath, but when he did, he saw that Stacy’s chamber had opened. Her gun was empty.

  “Oh shit,” she said.

  Samuel brought the .44 up and shot her in the chest, exactly where she’d shot him. Then, he shot her again on the opposite side of her breastbone. His bullets tore her tits to pieces, and that brought him some kind of satisfaction, destroying something so many men had sought to own.

  “Stacy!” Wayne screamed.

  She’d been blown back against the wall, and now she slid down, leaving a thick smear of blood on the plaster. He knelt beside her as she gurgled blood from her ruined lungs. He wanted to touch her, to soothe her in some way, but he couldn’t. What if she survived? She might end up with the Red Death, and he couldn’t live with that.

  “Stacy, don’t die. Please, don’t leave me. Not now, not after all of this.”

  She looked into his eyes and tried to say something. Instead, she sprayed blood on his face from her lips. Her baby blue eyes, which had captivated him mere moments ago, were now wild and somehow empty, blind and trying to see.

  He saw through the red and white prison of her ribcage as her torn heart beat erratically before finally stopping.

  “No!” Wayne cried. Tears fell from his cheeks and onto Stacy’s staring eyes.

  Samuel took up his shotgun again, using it to brace himself so his quivering legs wouldn’t collapse under him. When he knew he wouldn’t fall, he dropped the .44 in favor of a lighter .38.

  Wayne looked up and saw Samuel approach him. His eyes darted about the room, looking for an escape route. He wanted to kill Samuel for what he’d done to Stacy, just as he’d once wanted to kill Stacy for what she’d done to Old Shit, but he couldn’t do anything without a weapon.

  He only had one way out, and Wayne didn’t hesitate; he ran for the nearby window and hurled himself through the glass.

  He fell face down into the lawn three feet below. A puddle of broken glass surrounded him, and he could feel a few shards sticking into his body. He had no time for regret, no matter how much of his own blood seeped out of him. He felt glad to be alive, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  His body wanted to remain on the ground in surrender, and to add insult to injury, he felt the Red Death kick in yet again. Blood oozed not just from his wounds, but also from his pores. It would have been so easy to just give in then and there, but he knew he had to get away. Carefully, he placed his hands between the pieces of broken glass and eased himself to his feet. He had no time to take inventory of his injuries; as soon as he stood, he staggered away from the house as quickly as he could.

  5

  “Goddammit!” Samuel roared. Without thinking, he slung a bullet into the maid’s head, killing her in the blink of an eye. As if he didn’t notice his split-second homicide, he shuffled over to the window and peered out as Wayne ran for the gates.

  Samuel lifted his gun and took aim, but his hand shook, even when he tried to steady it with his other. Fucking Stacy. She just had to hit him, didn’t she?

  No, he didn’t want to do it like this, anyway. He loved nothing more than to look into his victim’s eyes as he killed them.

  He kicked out the remaining glass in the window and slipped out. Once on the ground, he slapped the switch on his jet pack and blasted into the sky just as Wayne made it to the front gate. Samuel watched from above as Wayne slid through the open bars and nearly fell onto the sidewalk. Just as he started to lurch away, Samuel decided to descend.

  He landed directly in front of Wayne. He drew the .44 again and aimed it at his target. Wayne skidded to a halt, and Samuel shoved the barrel of the gun into his gut, dropping him like a sack of shit.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Samuel asked. He aimed the gun at Wayne’s head. “Yeah, well, just imagine what it will feel like when I put this bullet in your head.”

  Wayne looked down the barrel and couldn’t believe something could be so dark. So everything in his life led up to this moment, did it? The good times as a kid, the bad times as an adult, David Nelson, Old Shit, Stacy Bartlett, the whole fucking mess? He remembered being a teenager, wondering how he would die someday. He and his friends had tried to come up with something really cool they could say just before they died. Something witty. Maybe even profound.

  Now, nothing came to mind. He couldn’t even remember what he’d settled on back then.

  “Think of it this way,” Samuel said. “At least getting blown away by me is better than dying of the Red Death. I’m doing you a favor, here. Maybe you should thank me.”

  Wayne closed his eyes. At least Samuel was right. Getting shot would certainly be more dignified. He tensed himself for the blast that would inevitably come.

  “Fine, don’t thank me. And don’t watch. But you’re missing a lot. You bought the ticket, you might as well take the ride.” He laughed.

  “Just get it over with,” Wayne said. He clenched his teeth and couldn’t believe that in mere seconds, he wouldn’t be in this world anymore.

  Then, he heard the crack of a gun.

  Chapter 21

  1

  Toby had the taxi drop him off a block away from the Drake mansion, just to be safe. He gave the cabbie a nice tip and began walking toward his destination. He’d been watching the LiveStreams, so he knew that Stacy had been terminated. He knew that Samuel tracked down Wayne at this very moment. He heard the crash of Wayne going through the window with his own ears.

  About fifty yards ahead of him, he saw Wayne slip through the gates—something he couldn’t have done if not for being so skinny thanks to the Red Death—and almost fall down. Then, he saw Samuel float down from the sky like a god of war, his hair tousled around his head like a dirty halo. Toby guessed the hunter wore a jet pack, which impressed him. Rich people got to have the coolest toys. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew Samuel now aimed a gun at Wayne. Toby drew close enough to hear them talking.

  “Think of it this way. At least getting blown away by me is better than dying of the Red Death. I’m doing you a favor, here. Maybe you should thank me.”

  Toby’s body thrummed with adrenaline. His hands shook as he felt his senses sharpen. He could see every filament of dust in the sunlight, and he could hear even an ant tapping its legs on the sidewalk. He could smell Stacy’s blood in Elizabeth’s mansion, and he could feel air molecules skating across his skin as he walked closer to Wayne and Samuel. He drew out his hunting knife, staring at the back of Samuel’s hairy, sweat-grimed neck. Usually, he did this for fun. This would be the first time he’d ever been paid to kill someone. He had no idea how Coppergate’s men figured out he’d been the serial killer stalking the Sleaze Strip, but it didn’t matter, did it? Fuckslingers and junkies didn’t make for great prey. They fed the demon in him just enough to keep it sated. Taking on a hunter like Samuel, though, that was different. He could feel his need clawing at his insides, eager to draw blood, to feel its warmth on his flesh, ever so soothing.

  “Fine, don’t thank me. And don’t watch. But you’re missing a lot. You bought the ticket, you might as well take the ride.” Laughter.

  Toby lightened his step until it seemed like he walked on air. He stopped breathing, although it hurt to do so. His blood pumped too fast, and he feared Samuel might hear his near-orgasmic panting if he’d let himself breathe. His puls
e beat too loudly as it was, and Toby knew from experience that sometimes, if one was attuned to the art of murder well enough, one could hear loud blood.

  Now he could see the gun Samuel held on Wayne, and he supposed he could just let the former kill the latter, but what fun would that be?

  “Just get it over with.”

  Toby wondered what Samuel would look like when he died. He didn’t think the hunter would beg for his life, but his blood would feel erotic on Toby’s skin, he knew that for certain.

  He took careful aim with the hunting knife, pulled back his arms, and brought it down with all of his might.

  2

  Wayne heard the crack of the gun, but after a moment, when he didn’t feel the pain that surely must come with being shot dead, he opened his eyes. He saw Samuel standing before him, but the gun pointed off at an askewed angle, far away from Wayne. Samuel’s jaw hung open, and his eyes bulged.

  Wayne opened his mouth, thinking to ask what had happened, but no sound came from him except a short whimper.

  Samuel made a gurgling sound, and blood sprayed from his lips. He doubled over, trying to reach behind himself. Wayne saw someone standing back there, but he couldn’t identify the person. A scraping sound filled his ears, and he ground his teeth as the person behind Samuel pulled the knife out of the hunter’s back from just above the jet pack.

  Samuel fell to the ground with a clank, and all of his weapons spilled from their hiding spots on his body in a clattering cacophony. Wayne could now see who had stabbed the hunter.

  “Toby?” he asked.

  “Hello, Wayne,” Toby said. “Are you well?”

  “You saved my life. Jesus, I’ve never been so happy to see anyone, ever.” If he’d had the energy, he would have pushed himself off the ground and given his savior a hug.