Derrick drove for three days straight further into the outskirts of the city. The road grew narrow and long as he continued onward. His eyes lazily scanning the roads ahead, occasionally glistening over as if he’d forgotten everything and that he was even driving. He mashed the gas pedal with too much force causing the whole car to jerk harder into the night. His hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel wringing it almost, as he glared into the starless sky.The oncoming traffic slowed and cautiously merged to the furthest lane in their efforts to avoid sudden contact with the raging crimson vehicle that pressed into the night.
His gaze never shifted away from the road that bled into an empty void. Seemingly unconcerned by surrounding traffic and the occasional angry horn honked. He simply honked his horn defiantly as he sped on searching for the familiar small shack of a house. The engine roared as the mustang propelled forward, vibrating violently along the paved road.
There in the distance the too small house slowly appeared as if the Earth itself had regurgitated it from the hills and found its existence too minute to receive. He quickly pulled into the yard as the front porch light revealed his tightened and furrowed features. His eyes possessed a steady calm as he reached the porch in two short strides. He stepped back with a brief pause and in one smooth movement he bashed in the frail wooden door with his boot, causing its frame to sharpley splinter away from the walls.
The house appeared dim and empty. A thick layer of dust coating the all too familiar floral old couch pushed against the side wall, adjacent from it was the t.v. dinner table that held a barely functioning television. He cooly walked in through the living room and back into the kitchen cluttered with glass bottles and aged needles but not an ounce of food in the gaping cabinets. He paused at the basement door held open seemingly just for him. His eyes for a brief moment began to lose focus as a single tear watered his worn dusky face and dissolved into an overgrown peppered beard.
“HAROLD…!!!” he bellowed out with an anger that sent the rats within the walls scurrying for a false sense of safety.
“Yeah…” a weak and tired voice answered back from the dimly lit basement below.
Derrick thudded down the stairs that creaked and bent below his muscular weight. There in the center of the small basement stood a tall broad man that just almost rivaled Derrick’s height. His shoulders slumped over as he swayed unsteadily back and forth barely leaning on the long tool cluttered table that now separated the pair.
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“ They told me my son was in town…” The hunched shadowed figure continued on. His sway rhythmic and unending. “But I didn’t believe them…” the old man slurred as he began to step closer into the weak lamp light now standing just at the side of the discolored wooden table.
His face was weathered and suntanned as if he’d been living and sleeping under the sun for decades. His eyes scanned the figure that challenged him and blocked his only way of escape.
“But I knew if he was coming, I’d send him back in a casket!” The old man spewed out in seering anger. He sloppily reached for his pistol on the cluttered table as he swayed with more agitation and less rhythm than before.
Derrick, being younger and much more agile, used the force of his foot once again and kicked over the long thick table propelling into the side wall. He waited as the old man eagerly regained his footing bitterly overwhelmed by the indirect blow.
“You killed her.” Derrick whispered coldly as Harold's sway broke into tremors while he searched desperately in the mess for his rusted gun.
“ THAT WHORE BETRAYED ME FIRST!” the old man boomed without any regard to the eyes that cooly trailed him back and forth. He gave up on his futile search and shifted his front foot forward and raised his fists ready to attack. His sway corrupted his center of gravity as he arrogantly stared back at his son.
“My mother…” Derrick paused and breathed deeply as he fought to restrain himself as he too began to develop a sway. “ …left you for beating the hell out of her every weekend, while you paraded across town with that badge on your chest.” He spat out as his sways became ripples of agitation that only ended at the close of his fists.
“ She deserved it…” the old man slurred, barely giving Derrick the time to finish speaking. Without warning the old man launched first swinging and pummeling at the frame that dwarfed his.
Derrick blocked most of the blows as the man who gave him life greedily sought to take it away with a seething hatred. He answered his father’s wrath with a swift blow across his jaw. The old man staggered back in anger as blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth, Harold sent his shoulders now barreling forward in efforts to tackle his son to the ground.
The pair thumped to the littered and dusty floor rolling back and forth. The old man awkwardly fumbled for placement on his son’s neck as he grunted angrily and futilely clawing away at Derrick’s face.
In a swift moment Derrick grabbed the rusted plumber’s wrench that sat just atop the pile of metal and wood. He struck at the top of Harold’s head just as the old man had managed to grip his son’s neck but only briefly. The sound of a wet crack punched the air as Harold slumped to the floor bleeding and shakily crawling for the rusty pistol he had lost before.
Derrick swung again, striking the old man’s balding dome for a second time as a depression overflowing with blood instantly appeared. The room grew silent as the shuffling ceased and only Harold’s grunts could be heard as the body refused to stop breathing. Derrick struck again in the same spot as before as the metal of the wrench slapped against the puddling bone that sprayed him with each strike. He continued on, his eyes glossed over as his beard dripped in his father’s blood. The body under him now still and cold as he sat heaving and exhausted by the strain of it all. He listened to the rats scurrying in the walls of what was once his home ages ago. He wept bitterly to himself next to the body as the wrench finally fell from his hands. He wept as he fumbled searching over the clutter past the still and draining body for his father’s family heirloom. Either he could find his father’s gun or the blue lights would reach him first.