Tanner sat at an old wooden table, the group gathered around like a proper cult. Weapons on the table and a stained-glass window high behind Tanner, gave a strange multicolored glow to her, as if to provide her chosen-one lighting. Her Geisha makeup running from crying and her butterfly knife in hand, twirling randomly. Near her left side sat a heavily tattooed young man with unnecessary sunglasses and all black clothing, hair buzzed short and a goatee. He broke the silence.
“Sorry about your boyfriend.” He whispered.
“Can we not though? Can we not start this meeting with that shit? Look, Mike is protecting us, me mostly. He doesn’t think I’m ready WHICH I CLEARLY AM!... But he thinks Mayor Sandlin is a suicide mission and he’s playing the martyr role. He’s also OBVIOUSLY using Nadja as some kind of pawn, I just don’t know how. He’s playing lost, but I know Mikey, he’s not like that, and he’s not just cheating on me with some Russian hoe. It’s some deep cover shit because he thinks nobody else can do this but him, and that’s where I think he’s wrong. We’re gonna do the hit before he does, and show him we’re all good enough to be a team he can lead. Except I don’t know any of you and I don’t know if anyone else is even any good, but Carl wouldn’t just pick any random dickheads, some of you gotta be badass, so we’re going around the table. Name, how you kill, and why you kill. Let’s keep judgment down and honesty high. We can't afford to lose people, so differences aside, we’re all looking at prison time and trying to form a partnership.” she said, nodding. “I’ll start with you. Samuel Motherfuckin Jackson’s older brother." She said as a black man with a graying beard solemnly turned and patiently answered.
“Theo Miller. Back in my day I was the OG Chicago club enforcer. Boss said to handle shit, I handled shit. Sometimes I handled shit with a body bag and a 45. I did time, got out with some favor pull. Got offered a shit job running errands for young bucks running the show. I handled shit too good for them. I don’t like disrespect, so I went freelance for a while…retired 20 years ago.”
“How good are you with a gun?” Tanner asked
“I’m good with a handgun or shotgun, but I’m not winning the Olympic pistol metals. They got another hitman there anyway, taking silver.”
“Okay that’s promising. Viking Dexter. What’s your deal?” she asked.
“Snowman. I worked road construction, got sick of cars swerving at me, so one day I unloaded a gun on one of them. Killed a guy. Just snapped and didn’t want witnesses, so I shot the other two road workers and stole the car. The thrill was pretty addictive. Tried to quit, kept on not quitting. Did 3 more paid kills.”
“Okay back that up… fucking SNOWMAN?” she squinted.
“I sold blow for 5 years. Everyone called me the Snowman.”
“Yea no, what’s your actual name?” She insisted.
“Elroy Collins.” He said almost looking embarrassed.
“...mkay. Maybe we can just call you Snow. I assume with a name like Elroy, the Mohawk, and that beard, that you have some redneck gun experience?”
“Hunting rifles, shotguns, grew up on a farm. I’m pretty good with a rifle.”
“Okay, so far we got our sniper, our handgun guy. What about you? You don’t really look like a killer.” She said to the skinny guy in the floral pattern button-up shirt, tortuous shell glasses, and his hair gelled up.
“Lincoln Rasooli. Hispanic mom, Italian dad. Grew up in the wrong side of New York. I did a few drive-bys to earn some respect. 6 dead confirmed, 3 that might have been me or the other guy in the car, still dead. Moved here to hide out. Guy talked some shit and I had to make him vanish, now cops got me as a suspect. Tech-9 kinda guy, but any auto 9mm works for me.” He said placing two of them on the table. “I wanted that reveal.” He said, adjusting his glasses.
“Okay I stand corrected. You seem fairly lethal. Team small packages, big body count.” She said, leaning out to bump fists. Now YOU, Captain Sparrow of the SS 3 ring circus…look like someone I would assume has tortured people.” She said as the grinning man in the tophat wearing eyeliner man, early 30’s. He nodded and tipped his hat, neck length hair pulled back, beard and mustache trimmed meticulously and a cross necklace around his neck. A gold skull adorning his walking stick and far more leather than anyone with eyeliner should be wearing outside a fetish club.
“You’d be right. All deserved. Alexander Windrek. Former colleagues if mine addressed me as Windex because I did the cleaning. Former biker, I have thus far lead a small biker gang till I took a couple of rounds to the leg. I procured a beverage establishment of the adult variety, started my own clubhouse, obviously a front for drugs and prostitution. I send to the grave, only people who earned it, nobody else, I have a strict code. I just get a little drunk and wild sometimes.” he grinned.
“That sounds familiar. Do you hear God, and stay sober to do his work?” She asked.
“Sober? Ma'am I confess I am quite drunk right now. I’m only a problem when I’m sober.” He said eerily serious, tapping his black painted nails.
“Don’t have a gun to reveal?” she asked. He drew a sword out of his cane and plopped it on the table.
“Guns get you searched, arrested when you look like me. I like to improvise, and I prefer something sharper you never have to reload. After nearly 2 years learning to walk properly again the cane went from a necessity to a familiar friend, and I like my friends dangerous.”
“Loose…cannon. Best for releasing in…shitstorm.” She said aloud, writing it down on her notebook. “You afraid to die?” she asked.
“I’ll let you know when I get to hell and see the accommodations.” He grinned sadistically.
“Loose…screws…on cannon.” Okay, moving on to the…also creepy guy in full leather… Why is everyone in leather? Ugh, Skinny Dave Batista. What’s your situation?” She asked.
“18 kills, mostly 9mm.” he said casually, a hint of a Russian accent he was trying to hide. I am Dillon Whitman.” He said lighting a cigarette and acting as if they would just move on to the next person.
“Russian accent in Illinois, sure. What’s your real name and why are you really here?” she asked.
“Fine. Fucking American accent is impossible anyway. Yuri Daro Vilensky. I lost my job recently and would like to kill my boss. You will help me do this.” He shrugged.
“I’m sorry, but this is MY cult…I mean group, and we don’t do side quests for the Russian mafia. Why would I risk my ass to help you kill your boss?” she asked. "Who's your old boss anyway?"
“Nadja Morozov Ivanova. I despise her. She’s fucking your boyfriend, I assume you would want her dead about as much as I do. I didn’t have a choice but to do her bitchwork for a year. She shot me for not smuggling her guns into the USA, which I told her was impossible. I was left on the street to die. Luckily I wore vest and luckily the ammo I gave her was not armor piercing as they said when sold to me. Fuck her, she must die. So we are friends, yes?” he asked. Tanner blinked slowly.
“I’m learning that I’m wrong a lot about people today, Apparently, we, in fact, do side quests. The primary goal is to bring back Mike and make him see that we are good enough for him to come back to. And part of that likely included killing that bitch. So I’d really prefer you just cripple her and let me finish the killing… buuut I’ve met her. Taking her alive is not…super safe or likely. I’ll accept just a bullet riddled corpse as proof you tried. Welcome to the cult. I mean AA group. Everyone keep an eye on this guy, because he’s either a spy and our most likely turncoat, or our best ally in this bullshit. I’m suspiciously optimistic, but I may start a no guns for you policy until we go live at the courthouse…that fair?”
“Tolerable.” He said.
“What about you, mister fancy expensive clothing, possibly British, and are you drinking vodka during the meeting?” she asked.
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“Heavens no. Never touch the stuff.” He said in a proper, but American accent. "Bottled water, I trust nothing else.” Said the young lad, long tan Sherlock Holmes coat and the shiniest dress shoes she ever saw propped on a table. Light brown hair and the kind of scruffy beard stubble people work hard to maintain to look rugged “Rowan Birch, medical school dropout, mortician for a few years. I’ve never actually killed anyone.” He said, sipping calmly.
“Sooooo. You just got the wrong address, heard too much, and now we can’t let you leave or what?” Tanner asked.
“Oh I’m very much on the run and facing prison as most of you are. I said I never killed anyone, I didn’t say I wasn’t a criminal. I’m a mortician for Christ’s sake. ”
“Please tell me you didn’t screw the dead bodies.” She sighed, facepalming. "I just...Corpsefucker is not overly helpful in this whole thing."
“I’m insulted by that assumption. I assure you I’ve never defiled a body in a sexual manner, or any way that a skilled butcher wouldn’t. I’m quite good with a knife and I may have committed the unforgivable sin of taking a few samples home from my work before cremation. What a tragedy to save a piece of perfectly good meat before burning it anyway. 12 women, all very dead on arrival, all very dead on cremation, as if it made a difference what anyone did between the two events. But no, I'm a butcher, I don’t fuck the meat. Did you know prison is very unkind to cannibalism, but for some reason gang violence and murder is perfectly accepted? Rather unfair to me, it seems. What a society we live in of misplaced priorities. But, I may be the closest thing you have a doctor and the best body disposal expert you have, and I doubt you people would report me for…disposing of some evidence in butter and garlic.” He said chuckling, switching which foot was on the tabletop.
“Great. That’s just great. So no military trained snipers, or black ops guys, or international hitman with some insane spy skills and connections to people? Just a douchey cannibal. Lame. Please tell me you…young sunglasses…are actually a wealthy son of a highly connected secret agent or something.” She said now returned to the first guy to speak up. He looked nervous in the spotlight.
“Uh, no. Caleb Gram. That’s my real last name. I sell drugs and steal cars. I stole a really expensive car with a pretty important dead guy in the trunk I didn’t know about, and got set up for murder.” he sighed nervously.
“So you haven’t… even killed anyone either?” she blinked. “Assassins anonymous is literally 12 percent people who’ve never killed anyone? Are we shitting me? Are we currently covering me in shit right now?”
“Oh, I almost killed someone. The guy who set me up. I figured I was already on the run and probably going to die running, so why not just give him the middle finger for the whole thing? Got a 38 special off the streets and just unloaded on his car when he pulled out of the driveway. Why not? Already fucked. His family has money. I don’t. I missed, but he got the message, I think.”
“Okay, I’ll take it. Everyone’s killed except this guy, and the guy who eats women…and not even in the cool way, dude.” she squinted.
“They weren’t complaining.” Snickered Rowan, sipping his bottled water from a highball glass. “Oh lighten up everyone. I’m the only one here who’s technically done nothing wrong.” He casually defended as a lot of eyes stared silently at him, suggesting their disagreement.
Mike sat on an old log outside the U-haul, the smell of smoke from the campfire masking the smell of human remains as he sat and waited patiently for the fire to die down. Footsteps approached. He lit a cigarette, and chased it with a swig of peppermint vodka. He slowly turned a little, staring at the shimmering knife stuck in the log a few feet away. He reached deep into his jacket and steadied his hand, as a shot fired, the quiet puff of sound followed by a grunt of pain, and a little smoke rolled from the hole in Mike’s Jacket. He drew the gun and casually finished his cigarette.
“Hello Carl.” Mike said, still facing forward.
“Are you serious?” Carl grunted, holding his hand and looking down at the Uzi he was holding a moment ago, now dented and probably inoperable, his broken trigger finger throbbing as Mike drew Rachel outward, and turned, pointing it at Carl's face.
“I thought we agreed, no kills under 200 yards.” Mike sighed with disappointment.
“Yea, well I…sort of planned to just drug you and then kill Nadja. We didn’t have any agreement about her. She’d just kill me if we did, agreement or not...lying bitch. How did you do that without even looking?”
“Reflection in the knife blade, I know this gun and how it aims without even looking. I just needed to know where to aim. Uzi…odd choice.”
“Yea, someone stole and trashed my Skorpion when I got dethroned, and I didn’t have a good selection in my truck. They took the ones that weren’t hidden, and I figured once they knew I escaped that I’d go back to my place, so I’m improvising. You gonna kill me?” Carl asked.
“Not unless you make a move and make me kill you. I’m still following the rules, Carl. So put the syringe on the bench and both Makarovs next to it, slowly."
“How did you know I was carrying them?”
“You’re predictable. You love that damn caliber for some reason, and I can see the shape of the holsters. I just guessed from there. You know I’m almost disappointed in you. A hit squad? Then poison? After I let you live?”
“Let me live, yea right. You missed."
“Those were warning shots on your truck. I had you, but I wanted you alive, and now I got that gift. You’re gonna help me kill mayor Sandlin.”
“Not that I don’t want him dead too, but why do you even need my help?” Carl asked.
“I don’t plan to kill him in public, I want him alive to kill later.”
“That’s insane.” Carl sighed. "You’re drunk and crazy. Killing a mayor is hard enough, taking one hostage is suicide.”
“Shooting him from a rooftop is too easy and simple. He’s responsible for the death of 32 women, Carl. 32 that we know of. He’s also assembled a team of serial killers worthy of death to do what he wants, and I’ve taken them out already in the Safehouse Massacre. The man is a menace to society, and pure evil. I don’t want him dead quick, I want him to suffer. Your hooligans probably can’t kill him, let alone take him alive, and you’ll get Tanner killed trying. That’s unacceptable. So we need your help for a 3-man operation.” He said as Nadja stuck a pistol to his head and pat him down for weapons.
“Strip. To bare-ass." She sighed.
"You heard her. I don’t trust you to not be hiding something, a knife a derringer, I doubt it’s UP your ass, but taped to a leg or tucked somewhere isn’t beyond you.” He said as Carl reluctantly stripped down and shivered, Nadja plopped a chair down behind him and sat him down, ziptying his hands and ankles.
“You gonna torture me? That’s not like you, Mike. You’re not a torture guy, you have honor.” Carl nervously insisted.
“It’s not torture, it’s just insurance.” He said as Nadja awkwardly grabbed his balls and he felt a ziptie singing up just barely snug enough to be hard to remove. He looked down and noticed a blinking red light, and a wire leading to a battery she taped to his abdomen.
“The fuck is this?” he nervously asked, sweating and breathing heavily.
“Like I said, insurance. That’s a small quantity of c4 and a detonator on your nuts. Not enough to kill you, but enough to change your religion. If you don’t give your fullest cooperation, Nadja has permission to pop that little cap. Now, if you doubt I’d do it myself, you know she’d just love to for the fun of it. Get dressed. You work for me now. You want Tanner getting killed trying to pull a mission she’s not ready for, or do you wanna probably get killed with us doing something crazy? Because those are the choices. If she gets hurt, I kill you. If you run, Nadja blows your nuts off, and then I kill you. If you tamper with that, you blow own your nuts off, and then I kill you. If you cooperate and do this right, you’re probably going to get shot by security, but there’s a chance you’ll pull it off, and then the bomb comes off. There’s no way out of this without risk, there’s just multiple ways you can screw it up and die less of a man. Are you compliant?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m quite compliant, Mike. You got me listening and taking notes.” carl admitted.
“Good, then you won’t be stupid enough to try and kill either of us because even if you did, and you somehow ran…"
“Yea, nuts get blown off, I got you. You don’t hear me arguing”
“How many bug-out places do you have with supplies?” Mike asked. The moment he hesitated, Nadja gave him a light backhand to the crotch.
“Three! I got 3 trailers, aside from the main ones I live in, with the collection. I got a truck and some guns at each one.” carl said in a higher pitch.
“Still glad you decided to hunt me down and prove you’re the big swinging dick in this territory?” he asked as Nadja chuckled.
“We just proved that theory false before he even got dressed.” she giggled.
“Ah, very funny. Joke around and torment Carl. I pissed you off, and I realize now I’m really not the guy for the job. You got me, Mike. I’m the runner-up by a wide margin. All hail the king, I'm stepping down to Duke.”
“You’re barely a jester, asshole. Tanner took you down like a bitch, and she’s not ready for this job. She’s twice the killer you are and still has a heart. I know every move you make before you finished making it, I know that your team and Tanner have no plan at all, making it up as they go, trying to impress me, and they’re gonna get killed. I don’t even want the man dead, I want him in your position. Except you can get out of this position by cooperating and maybe even live unscathed and wiser, and when mayor Sandlin ends up in that chair, his hell is just starting, and there’s no way out. So consider yourself very lucky I can use you, rather than just killing you for being a pain in my ass.” Mike explained as Nadja leaned dangerously close.
“I still would like to torture and kill you, but I promised Mike I wouldn’t.” Nadja hissed in his ear.
“Oh that’s comforting. She actually listens to you? Kinda seemed like the other way around.” He huffed.
“Nadja woke up something in me. Something that doesn’t follow orders. It gives them. She finds that attractive, and she would rather torture a mayor than you, and I would be willing to forgive your backstabbing if this goes to plan. Of course if it doesn’t and anything goes wrong, if Tanner gets hurt, or you just fail…either you die trying or Nadja gets to play with you. She doesn’t even play nice with people she likes, trust me on that. She leaves marks from foreplay. Let’s go for a ride to one of those bug-out spots you have. Which one is closest to a gun store with a really good selection?” Mike Grinned.