Glass Bullets

Warm, calming hues of violet and reddish-orange streaked across the sky. Brick, cement, and thoughtfully placed greenery glowed amber in the gentle evening light. The ‘Captain’, as he was known, spied a man through the view of his scope.

The man, as his uniform indicated, was a security guard. He plucked a cigarette from out of his shirt pocket and brought it to his mouth.

The Captain zoomed in to read the man’s name-badge. His name was James. The Captain then scanned out, framing the oblivious guard in his scope.

A sudden thud cleared the air. James fell. Contact with the pebbly ground brought his chin up swiftly into a chomp, separating his cigarette, as well as his tongue, into halves.

Gazing down the tip of his nose, James watched as a chunky pool of blood flowed outwards, filling his view. The blood pushed his separated half-tongue, and for a moment it was a fleshy little boat adrift a thick red sea.

“Uuuguh.” A mess of sound stumbled out of his mouth, along with more blood.
Amidst the shock, he became aware of the sharp pain at the center of his back, and realized that he’d been shot.

He tried to move. Planting a forearm at each side of his chest, he began to lift himself up, only to collapse at the overwhelming pain. The Captain enjoyed this; his grin became a wide, toothy smile as a second guard walked into the scene.

“Holy shit James, what happened?” the guard exclaimed, only half expecting a response. He looked to the pools of blood about James, stunned.

Realizing suddenly that standing next to James was putting him in danger, the second guard quickly asserted himself, and began scanning for a retreat. He spotted a small alcove in the building only a couple yards away, and dashed to it.

The Captain watched as the second guard, not surprisingly, brought a cell phone from out of his pants pocket. The guard jabbed at the phone’s buttons in a mad dash to get help. The Captain arched his brow at this.

“No you don’t,” the Captain quietly assured, and with heated intent, began reloading his rifle with a glass bullet less dense than the one used on James.

Smash!! The second guard’s stance softened as his cell phone flew from his flailing hand. The phone shattered in near conjunction with the guard’s collapse. Lying next to the scattered remains of his cell phone, the guard was still alive. The bullet had lacerated his forehead just deep enough to shatter against the hard surface of his skull.

He held his face in his hands. Blood crept through the slits of his fingers. Had he not been so busily distracted by his injury, his nose would have caught scent of the strange liquid that came from inside of the glass bullet.

The man let out a searing, full-bodied scream as the Captain’s own, personally mixed, super-charged, acidic compound burned his facial features down to the bloody wick. James’ lifeless eyes gazed towards his friend as the hole in his friend’s face grew; it grew in what seemed to be haste to catch up with the size of the now sizzling hole still growing in James’ back. A syrupy mess of James’ ex-innards bubbled within the hole like an overheated stew.

The Captain shot the men again, this time with his camera. He then packed his things neatly, and got on his way. He would again slip through the police’s fingers before their hands even trembled at the sight of what he’d done.

***

Violet and reddish-orange solar-rays painted the silver sides of a moving Buick. The inside of the car was just as colorful. The fresh Polaroids of James and his friend lay sprawled on the back seat, while a general mishmash of candy wrappers and other assorted junk cluttered the rest of the vehicle’s interior. Amidst the mess sat the Captain.

He sped down the highway, obediently adhering to the speed limit. Only the occasional commuter passed the Buick on this straight desert road. Taking advantage of the highway’s near-vacancy, the Captain adjusted his glass eye in the rear-view mirror. The glass eye, along with the scarred donut of flesh surrounding it, resembled a fried egg. The Captain thought this was funny, and often chuckled at his egg-eye.

The sun was almost down now. The Buick’s wheels slowed, crawling off of the main road onto a dirt driveway. The beams from the Buick’s headlights stretched out along the pebbly little road like the arms of Frankenstein’s monster, reaching the gas station and climbing up its front.

A lady customer and the store’s young, lone clerk casually glanced outside to the light source, and just as casually went back to their business.

Behind the Buick’s tinted windows, the Captain used his scope to study the woman’s face. He scanned down, and halted at her very pregnant stomach.

“My!” he exclaimed. “She’s about ready to burst!”

He stared at her stomach, losing himself at the spot where he’d supposed her belly-button might be. The woman just stood there, catching up on the latest celebrity gossip, oblivious to the Captain’s eye.

The Captain imagined himself from a side-view, aiming his rifle at the fetus, and the fetus, aiming its stubby, little finger right back at him. He chuckled.

In a whisper that crept out from his lips, he said to the fetus, “I could make a real gross display of you babe.”

The Captain’s trigger finger maintained its assured poise, not giving nor releasing any pressure. He observed the pregnant woman’s belly like a chess player studiously contemplating their next move.

“I’ll refrain this time.”

The Captain placed his rifle aside, got out of his car, and strode into the gas station. He entered the door with a grin, got some chocolaty Bog Bars, and said “howdy” to the woman before leaving. She couldn’t bring herself to be quite as polite. She brought her hand to her belly, and just stared, dumbfounded.

***

The sun was very much down now as the Captain pulled his Buick into the driveway of a modest, two-story home. An active white light illuminated the curtains of the living room window. Someone was watching TV. The Captain gazed at the bright curtains, pondering his approach. “How will I go about it this time?” he wondered. “Will it be the same old, or will this time be different?”

Collecting his items into the confines of a large, black, leather bag, the Captain got out of his Buick and headed towards the front door. Crickets sang jubilantly all around him. He let their familiar song soothe him as a slight sigh escaped his mouth. Reaching the door, he hesitated a bit, going over the game plan just one more time in his head.

Entering the home, he was met by a shrill, barely feminine voice. “Is that you!” it demanded. The Captain did not answer, but only looked to the back of the recliner where the woman sat.

“I asked you a question,” said the woman, turning from the blaring television to face the Captain. Her mannish features cut sharp shadows in the harshly lit room. “Your eye’s crooked,” she said. With his free hand, the Captain brought a black eye-patch from out of his pants pocket, and slid it up on over his head, covering his false eye.

“Do you feel better?” she asked. “Are your nerves calm now?” she gibed. The Captain grasped the rubber handle of his bag tightly, in what was his only reprisal towards the woman. “Yes honey,” he said with a thick tongue, “I feel much better now.”

The woman turned back to the TV. The Captain walked a couple steps towards the bedroom, looked back to the woman he called ‘honey,’ and then finally begun heading towards bed, grumbling, “I hate you,” over and over.