The Morning

  I remember 'The Morning', as I would later come to call it, with such horrific clarity it often makes me sick to my stomach. It was around seven A.M., hot as hell, and I was staring up at my dusty fan blades thinking 'I need to get around to washing those.' As I was considering getting out of bed I glanced over at her, felt a shiver as I looked at her naked back half covered by my comforter. Twenty minutes and a few more surreptitious glances later, I finally gathered the strength to get out of bed and walked into the kitchen to get my coffee. I rummaged through the cabinet, discovered I had no coffee filters, and briefly considered going to the store. Instead, I resolved to drink the half-empty Gatorade left in my fridge. Groggily, I stumbled my way toward my Mac and stabbed the power button. It took about a minute for the piece of shit to finally turn on-- it was seven years old and so loaded with trojans that Internet Explorer wouldn't even open half the time. After a short eternity of loading, my desktop finally appeared on the screen and I opened up Explorer, going directly to Hotmail. As I was typing in my password, she came out of the room half-dressed and leaned in to kiss me.
    "Good morning, baby," I said to her with a grin on my face that made me look like a 15-year-old boy who just got laid. "Sleep well?"
    "Yeah, very. Hey, you need to go down to the store later. You have no coffee filters." I couldn't help but to roll my eyes.
    "I realized. Just let me check my e-mail really quick and I'll come out and make you breakfast, okay?" I told her. Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. We both know that I can't cook to save my life. She kissed me again and walked out of the room, throwing a lock of tangled hair over her shoulder as she went. A few minutes later, as I was typing out responses to people, I heard her frying bacon in the other room. I smiled to myself and called out into the kitchen,
    "Hey! I told you I was making breakfast!" I heard her laugh, a melodic laugh I had loved from the moment I met her, and she called back,
    "Honey, I think your kitchen looks nicer when it's not on fire." It was harsh, but it was the truth. Last time I tried to cook for her, everything ended up burnt except the peas. The chicken had actually caught on fire. I clicked out of Hotmail and went into the kitchen. I stepped behind her and looped my arms around her waist, resting my head on her shoulder.
    "You could always let me try, you know." I told her quietly, looking down at the bacon she was frying. I was getting hungrier by the second the more she made. She worked as a chef and she was damn good at it. She looked at me over her shoulder, and smiling through every word, she ordered me to go get some coffee filters, telling me she'd be done by the time I got back. I dutifully obliged and walked into my room, picking up some clothes off the floor. The thought of taking a shower crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. I would take a shower when I got back. I walked back into the kitchen to kiss her again.
    "I love you more than anything." I told her, and her smile was enough to brighten my whole day.
    "I love you too." She whispered. God, if I had only known those would be the last words I could ever say her.
    When I got back from the store, my entire apartment building was just a flaming mass. There were six or seven cops out in front of the building accompanied by multiple ambulances. I slammed on my parking brake and jumped out of my car, running up to the nearest police officer.
    "What the fuck happened here?!" I suppose it probably came out as a tone of fear, anger, and complete horror as the reality of the situation set in-- she was in there. I hoped so desperately she got out.. she wasn't hurt.. at that point, I was praying to every deity I never believed in that she was even alive.
    "Sir, who are you?" The officer responded. I never understood how calm he could sound when she was in there.
    "I live here, I was out getting fucking coffee filters. What the fuck HAPPENED?!" My voice grew louder and louder, cracked a few times.
    "Someone set off an explosion in the lobby of the first floor. We have no leads as to who the person could be. We're just lucky that all of the surrounding buildings are okay..." The officer continued on but at that point, I was lost in my own mind. At this point, I was sobbing weakly. It's not possible for me to convey the rush of emotion I felt at that moment. She was dead. I knew she was dead.
    Later on, an officer would take me to try and identify a body. Seeing how she didn't live there and had no ID on her the authorities or the hospital or the morticians or whoever the fuck cared about it had no idea who she was. They sent me to a room. It was sterile, had a blue glow, and it was.. cold. Detached. A woman who I suppose was a nurse threw a blanket off of a table in the center of the room. On it lay a body. As I saw it, I had to turn my head the other way and began gagging. The flesh was black, burned, peeling off. The hair was mostly singed off. And the face.. God, it was barely even a face anymore.
    "Sir, we need you to identify this body to the best of your knowledge. I know it may be extremely difficult, but we need to know-- was this your fiancee?" The nurse asked me with a clearly faked look of sympathy. I pulled together every piece of composure I had and took a few looks at the body. After a moment, with tears streaming down my face, I told them.
    "Yeah. It's Amanda."

    It's been five years since The Morning. I moved into an apartment in southern California, as far away as I could get from where Amanda and I used to live without completely leaving the state. I got a shitty job working computer security for a shitty company that pays about $30,000 a year. It's not much, but it pays the rent. I haven't dated a single girl since The Morning, but my relationship with my left hand has been significantly strengthened. I live alone with a cat I recently adopted off the street. I call him Kitty. In the five years I've been living my mundane life I have only had one major goal, and it is what keeps me breathing.
    Revenge.
    A month or so after The Morning, they finally caught the bastard who killed her. His name was originally Brian Reed and he was a short man who fit the exact physical description of your stereotypical child-beating white trash who rapes his fifteen year old daughter. Five foot five, slightly overweight, black hair rapidly falling out, glasses. Dirty clothes that look like they came out of a dumpster and never got washed. He looked to be around his mid-thirties. And the fucker, that little pussy, he ran. Right after they got him, he ran off and no one has seen him since. They looked for him for a few months, but after that the FBI let it go. Just a few hundred people dead, nothing at all to worry about, and the man has never been seen since. Until now.
    I have spent the last five years of my life searching for him. I spent every night staying up until I fall asleep at the keyboard searching for him, any trace of him. I spent years gathering every piece of information that could be found. It wasn't quite as easy as it might sound. I work in computers and I'm damn good at it, and it still took me all this time to find him. But find him, I finally did. I discovered that he'd relocated himself to southern Iowa, changed his name to Edward Smith. Perfectly plain, and just glorious for hiding from the FBI. Now that I've found him, my goal, my only goal, can be accomplished and I can finally feel at peace. Crazy, I might be; but I loved her.
    Sitting at my computer desk, I began to wonder just how I was intending to execute all this. It has to be perfect, absolutely perfect. Not in a million years would I let this man get away from me. I started searching online for any source of a weapon. A very large weapon. The kind of weapon I wanted would leave him a pile of mincemeat in his run-down shit shack of a house. Yes, I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to feel in the last few moments of his life all the pain and heartbreak I'd had to endure ever since I returned from the store on The Morning. I wasn't sure if that was possible, but I would try. I would damn well try. I scanned through page after page of guns to absolutely no avail. I could feel my eyelids drooping, and I strained them to focus on the harsh glare of the monitor. I turned my head to look at the time and discovered it was 4:45.
    "I have to be up again in forty-five minutes," I muttered to myself, catching the disdain in my voice. My head was beginning to ache and the idea that this was all simply an elaborate fantasy was working its way farther into my conscious mind than ever. No, I told myself, almost speaking aloud. That wouldn't happen, and I would ensure it. The work of scrolling through the pages was seeming more and more tedious and I was inconceivably close to just giving in and going to bed. That is when my savior showed itself on the screen. It presented itself with a black background and annoying green and pink font. On this page displayed a picture of an AK-47 being sold in Texarkana. There was a large block of text describing it, but I skipped that and went directly to the sellers' email to ask how much. The plan was beginning to unfold.
 
    The next day during work, I was sitting around in my office doing mundane security fixes on some cheap vending machine company's website. I was drinking coffee like crazy trying to keep myself awake after getting only an hour of sleep last night and begun a routine check of my email. As I scrolled listlessly through the subject titles, one caught my eye. It was a response from the seller of my gun. I'd taken the liberty of naming the gun Alexis. She looked like an Alexis, and being a vital piece of my plans, AK-47 just seemed like such an informal name.
    The guy's name was Harrison Gerrit and he wanted $4,560 for Alexis. He told me that he was eagerly awaiting my response. I was sure he was eagerly awaiting my five thousand dollars, too. Nevertheless, I clicked reply and told him I had it, which I did. I had been setting aside money ever since I had settled here for this exact purpose. I wasn't a complete moron and I realized that perfect vengeance was never without a price tag. I then asked him when was the soonest I could pick up the gun and clicked the 'send' button. Immediately afterwards, I closed my e-mail and walked into my boss' office.
    "Hey, Rob. What's up?" My boss asked, feet on desk. He was a really easygoing guy, and there were many times in my life when I had appreciated that dearly. Now was one of those times.
    "Greg, I want some vacation time." I asked him point blank as there was no point in beating around the bush. I'd never taken a vacation in my entire five years of working there anyway. It wasn't that I hadn't wanted to leave, it was that I had nowhere to go. I never talked to my parents and my sister and I had never gotten along. I didn't have any friends, either. I had some when Amanda was alive, but we'd all fallen out of touch shortly after she died.
    "Vacation time? Wow. Finally manage to get a girlfriend?" We both grinned. That truly was comical-- me with a girlfriend? I doubt that would ever happen.
    "Nah. Finally decided to go see those parents of mine. I haven't seen them in, what, nine years now? I figure it's time I paid them a little visit." The lie fell smoothly and easily off my tongue. Perhaps my subconscious had this entire plan marked out to the finest detail beforehand. Or perhaps I had just refined the skill of lying over years of being bitter and lonely. Either way, Greg believed it.
    "Ahh. The folks. Good luck with that, man. How much time do you need?" I had to think about that. How much time would it take? That Harrison guy-- what kind of a name was Harrison anyway?-- hadn't even told me when I could pick up the gun yet. And a drive from California to Texas, then doubling back up to Iowa? This was going to take some time, but I was getting impatient. This had to happen and it had to happen soon.
    "Three weeks." I spit out. I knew that might be a bit too much time to ask for, but I had five years' of vacation time behind me. Besides-- my revenge meant more to me than my job.
    "That's cool. When do you want to take it?" At that point, he swung his feet off his desk and turned to his computer. That time, I didn't even think. I just spoke almost involuntarily.
    "If I buy a flight that's going out tomorrow, it will cost me way less." I knew that didn't make any sense at all; it would be more expensive to buy a flight going out tomorrow. I hoped he wouldn't question me on it; I knew at that point I'd get caught up in my own lie. Thankfully, he was apathetic to this fact.
    "Alright. I'll call and tell Eli he has to work tomorrow. He's gonna be so pissed..." Greg pulled out his cellphone and started dialing a number. "Have fun," he said, pressing the phone up to his ear. I simply nodded and walked out of his office. I now had a time to do it, and I had something to do it with. All that was left was doing it.

    I slammed my door shut and threw my coat, keys and mail down. I was fucking pissed, and I had good reason to be. Harrison had replied, saying the earliest I could pick it up was Thursday of next week. Today was only Monday. That was knocking out a lot of my valuable time, did I want to get there and come back all within the three weeks I was allotted. I was mentally kicking myself for not waiting before I asked for vacation time. I'd gotten ahead of myself wrapped up in my fantasies of revenge. After I picked Alexis up, I'd have only a week and a half. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat on my couch to think this through. Now that things were really happening, I had to figure out a definite plan.
    Next Monday I could begin the drive down to Texas. I figured it would be a good two-day drive, and that was if I was pushing it. That would put me in there sometime Wednesday, and so I'd have a few hours to rest. I'd need it. I could then pick up Alexis and right afterwards I'd start heading up to Iowa. The guy lived in Unionville, Iowa, a middle of nowhere town excluded from half of the world's maps. It would take me around a day to reach his shit town. By the time I reached his town, it would be Saturday. I planned to take that Saturday and the first part of Sunday to rest. Once all was dark it would be time for me to take action. When the little shit was dead, I'd start driving back that Monday. That drive would probably take me around three or four days. I could have shortened it if I wanted to, but once he was dead, what was the point? I had an extra week to spare, should everything go as planned, and absolutely nothing to do with it. Even if things took me an extra day or two, I had enough time to still get back before my vacation time was up.
    My nerves were soothed at the idea that all was going to go well. Everything was going to work out beautifully, just beautifully. Soon his life would come to an untimely end. As the bloody images of his broken face began to crawl into my mind, I burst out laughing. I stayed that way for a long time; laughing--no--cackling at his demise.

    The week beforehand passed inconceivably slowly. Many a time I was compelled to just get in the car and start driving right then and there. My anxiety and boredom were building and building. I sat around in my apartment that week with nothing to do but fantasize and go over the plan until it was completely flawless. I spent a good portion of that week just biding my time with a bottle of Bacardi in one hand and my dick in the other. I had taken the liberty of not only withdrawing the money for Alexis, but a thousand dollars in spare cash. It would probably end up being far too much, but I wanted to make sure that I had enough. I wasn't entirely sure what sort of expenses I'd run across. I couldn't take my credit cards with me, either; nothing that had any sort of identification. I didn't want to be tracked. A paranoid measure? That it was, but when you want to commit first degree murder, paranoia is your best friend.
    When that Monday finally presented itself, I was brimming over with excitement. I spent the morning running around my apartment, throwing everything into my car. Around 2:30, I was finally on the road. I was smiling uncontrollably as I hit the highway towards Texas. It was really happening. It was one thing to fantasize, as elaborate as those fantasies may have been, but now it was really happening. I was going to get Alexis accompanied by a car full of Cheese-Its. Afterwards... Alexis and Mr. Reed were going to have a little excursion. I threw a Linkin Park CD into the player and laughed right towards the horizon.

    It was 4:17 PM Wednesday afternoon when I hit Texarkana city limits. Mentally, I celebrated, but physically I was exhausted. I hadn't stopped driving since the afternoon that I originally hit the road. My brain was absolutely begging for sleep. I turned off the highway at the first sign I saw for a hotel, any hotel. At that point I didn't give a shit if my room was crawling with cockroaches, I just wanted anywhere with a bed. I was running off cheap 7-11 coffee and some Pringles only and I looked pretty fucking miserable. The hotel sign appeared to shine like a beacon to my malnourished brain. I hadn't pulled shit like this since I was seventeen. I turned into the hotel parking lot which, surprisingly, was packed. It wasn't a chain-- it was some random place that looked like it actually would be infested with cockroaches and perhaps the occasional termite. I shut the car off and reached into the backseat, pulling a few twenties from the wad of money I had laying on the floor. I grabbed the bag of clothes that was back there and stepped out of the vehicle to stumble my way to the door.        Fuck, it had to be at least a hundred degrees out here. As I opened up the door I was hit by frosty-cold air and walked toward the counter. The man behind it had deep pockmarks in his face, giant bags under his eyes, and a cowboy hat. He was smoking a cigarette, which couldn't possibly be allowed. Here, standing in front of me, was my very first real live redneck. Despite the fact that he looked like he might shoot me if I said the wrong thing, I approached him anyway and asked for a room.
    "How many beds?" He had a heavy southern accent.
    "Just one. Only for tonight." I mumbled. He asked for money, I'm not even sure how much-- I just threw the entire wad of twenties on the counter. He gave me some change and a key. I thanked him and walked toward the stairs. I moved slowly, almost like a zombie. At first, I tried to open the door to the wrong room. I stood there turning the key in the lock and wondering why the hell it wasn't opening when the door opened from the inside. Standing there was my second real live redneck with a bed sheet wrapped around his waist.
    "What the fuck do you think you're doing, you fucker?! Get the fuck away from me or I'll fucking shoot you!" I begun apologizing profusely and he slammed the door in my face. I took a better look at the number on the key and discovered I not only had the wrong room but the wrong floor entirely. I trudged up yet another set of stairs, finding the right room this time. I opened the door, dropped my bag, and flung myself onto the bed. I fell asleep almost the exact second my eyes closed.

    I awoke that night at 11:30 to a cockroach crawling across my neck. It took me a moment to get oriented and realize what the fuck was tickling me. I reached up to brush off what I thought was my hair and cried out in unfortunate realization.
    "What the fuck?!" I scratched the bitch off my neck and watched it hit the floor and crawl away.
    "I was kidding about the cockroach-infested hotels..." I muttered to absolutely no one and hoisted myself out of bed. I discovered then that I was extremely hungry. I took a look at a bag of chips on the floor and immediately felt nauseated, the same nausea that hit me when I thought about her. If I ate one more Cheese It, I would definitely vomit up everything I'd eaten in the last 72 hours. Which happened to be solely Cheese Its.
    I pulled on some clean clothes and made my way out to my car. For awhile, I just drove around, looking for something that was open at midnight. After about twenty minutes, someone spoke.
    "Just go knock on somebody's door and demand food," someone said from somewhere.
    "Who the fuck are you and why the hell are you in my car?!" I yelled, whipping around. There was no one in the back seat. I turned on the dome light and discovered there was no one laying on the floor, either.
    "You don't like me? I certainly like you." They spoke again. At that point I got freaked out and flipped an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road, heading straight back to the hotel. My hunger momentarily forgotten, I began speeding. Who the fuck could possibly have gotten into my car and why couldn't I see them?
    "Calm down, you dumbass. You can't outrun me."
    "OH YES I CAN!!" I screamed and ran a red light, flying back into the parking lot and running back up into my room. It was beautifully silent. I curled up into the fetal position and fell asleep that way.

    The next morning, the events of the night before were completely gone from my mind. I was going to pick up Alexis today. I called Harrison from the hotel phone and took down some notes such as his exact address and directions. I told him I'd be there within the hour.
    An hour and a half later and I was pulling up in Harrison's driveway. It should have taken me about fifteen minutes to get there, but I ended up driving for half an hour in the wrong direction. I then realized that I was not only going in the wrong direction but on the wrong road entirely and it took me another hour to get back to where I started. Either way, I was here now.
    Harrison lived on a ranch. I could see pasture for miles back behind his fairly large house, and there appeared to be a barn in the distance. I walked out of the car counting hundreds as Harrison appeared, holding my Alexis. A wide grin spread across my face as I saw her in all of her glory.
    "'Ello, Rob." Harrison flashed what would have been a toothy grin, had he any teeth, as he offered his hand. I shook it cordially and then handed him the cash.
    "Paid in full. You said you were giving me ammo with it?" He'd damn best give me some ammo with it. I paid an extra two hundred dollars for it.
    "Yep. Three clips. Here you go, Robbie. She's all yours." I frowned; no one had called me Robbie since... Amanda. I grabbed Alexis and thrust the cash into his hand, forcing the memories out of my mind. He was greedily pawing through it as I held her in my hands for the first time, stroking her metal body. I realized that I was laughing once again when that bastard from my car started yelling at me again.
    "Pretty snazzy gun you got there." It hissed at me. I chose not to respond as it made comments on my every move. Harrison and I shook hands once again, thanked each other, and he headed back into his house as I got back in my car. The person was still talking.
    "I see you're not freaking out this time. Does that mean I'm welcome?" It seemed to have... glee in its voice. I was completely disgusted. As I got back onto the highway to the drive up to Iowa, it was still talking up a storm. It talked all the way up to Unionville.

    After about an hour of blasting music, trying to drown out whoever it was that was bothering me, I finally cracked and just started talking. We discussed my current plot of revenge, and for awhile we discussed my sex life. That pissed me off seeing how I had no sex life, so we then returned to the death of 'Edward Smith'. After some time, I became adjusted to the person. I sort of enjoyed their company. As I drove up there, talking to the person, I kept Alexis up in the front seat with me. If I would ever love another woman again, she was it.
    Finally, after about a day, I was up in Unionville. I parked the car in a parking lot of a church, pulling Alexis out of the car with me. I looked out at the tiny, quiet little farm town and once again began to laugh.
    "Amanda, baby, this is it!" I screamed to the sky, to the person, to anyone who cared to listen. I just screamed.
    I had originally planned to spend today resting. However, when I got out of that car, sleep was the farthest thing from my mind. There was so much adrenaline hissing through my body that I didn't even know what to do with it all. So I decided tonight would be the night. Tonight would be the night that everything I wanted, everything I had ever worked for, would all come to a head. I had planned out exactly how I was going to kill Brian, but all that planning was far from my mind. Now I was making up everything as I went along. So I started walking towards his house.
    I must have looked utterly insane, walking down the street with Alexis in hand talking to the person. But that was one of the advantages of having a victim in a town with a population of 150-- there was no one around to see you. Dusk was rapidly setting itself in. As soon as night came, Brian would be staring down the barrel of Alexis. Oh, I wished that he had a wonderful night, because it would be the last one he ever spent alive.

    I hadn't a clue what time it was, but it was definitely nice and dark, just the way I wanted it. I was standing directly in front of the guy's shit house. I recognized it from the photos I'd found on the internet as well as the address matching the one on the little scrap of notebook paper in my hand. I grinned for the thousandth time this night, knowing I'd finally found him. All of my work was about to pay off. The grin only growing wider and wider, I raised my gun and knocked on the door.
    My heartbeat quickened as I heard footsteps coming toward the door.
    "It's him! SHOOT!" It screamed at me. As the door opened, Alexis fired her first shot. She recoiled back, and though I tried to hold her she slammed into my shoulder, causing searing pain. For a second I was upset because it had ended so quickly, but the scream that pierced the air was female. I supposed I had just killed Brian's little wench. No matter, she wasn't of any importance anyway. I stepped over her body and entered the house.
    The person had been talking to me, but all sound it made dulled to nothing when I spotted him. He was pressed against a counter in his dirty kitchen looking completely terrified. I laughed in his face.
    "Hello Brian." I had the gun pointed at his chest. His eyes were wide and his features stretched in a look of complete horror.
    "My name's not Brian.. my name is Edward, you've got the wrong guy!" This infuriated me. He should have been attempting to bargain for his life, and he was trying to lie to me? What gave him such nerve? I jammed Alexis right into his neck, making my shoulder throb even more.
    "Shut the fuck up. We both know that your name is Brian. Don't you fucking lie to me, you cunt," I hissed, my voice low and dangerous. I saw for a moment he turned to complete panic, but he came to his senses.
    "Okay. Okay. My name's Brian. What do you want?" He was almost begging, and it was so pathetic I just had to laugh. I allowed the person to talk once more, and the things it said were disgusting.. yet so appealing.
    "Do you remember a certain apartment complex in California? You know, the one you blew up?!" I had jammed the gun into his neck once again, the last few words dripping with spite. The panic overtook Brian's mind again, and this time it lasted longer than just a second.
    "What the fuck does that have to do with anything? You lived, right?" He was begging now. Pleading for me to let him go. Oh, as if there were any chance of that happening.
    "Brian, what is the worst pain you've ever been in?" I asked him softly. I looked him straight in the eye and he faltered. Terror seized him once again and I saw his eyes swimming with questions as to why. He would find out soon enough, and if he was smart enough to escape the FBI, he was smart enough to play my games.
    "Uh.. I got in a snowboarding accident in the 7th grade and broke my spine and my hip." His voice had grown quiet and meek. I chuckled silently to myself at the beauty of this all. I had started pacing around the room, the gun still always trained on him.
    "Well, Brian, I'm about to top that tenfold." With a hysterical laugh I shot the gun, hitting his left hand, and he screamed. He screamed like a little baby. It was fabulous. He was howling, absolutely howling, and clutching his injured hand. The person and I laughed as one. My heart was racing, my blood was boiling. I felt more alive in those moments then I had felt in my entire life.
    "You like that?" He only screamed in response. "Well that's good, because there's more where that came from." I leaned down to look his crumpled form directly in the eye. "Now, you will talk to me, or I will empty the rest of this clip into your head. Have I made myself clear?" He nodded vehemently. I thought he might have actually gotten the idea into his head that I was going to leave him alive. What a fucking moron.
    "Now, why did you blow up my fiancee?" I demanded. My words were dripping with complete hatred. He looked at me with those terrified, glazed eyes and I stifled another laugh.
    "I didn't mean to blow her up.. I was trying to get at the chick my wife was cheating on me with.. you know?" I smiled. Now he was trying to relate to me. The stupidity of this man was just making me want to shoot him more.
    "Well, you blew her up anyway, and now you're going to pay for it, you sick fuck." I raised Alexis and shot his other hand. His screams escalated as the bullet embedded itself in his right hand. The blood was seeping into his grease-stained white T-shirt.
    "You'd best hurry up, or he's going to pass out from the pain." The person hissed. I nodded in agreement. I'd have to make my final few words and empty the rest of the clip into his gruesome little face.
    "Just do it. Do it for Amanda." The person told me, and it told me in the same tone that the fucking cop used on the day of her death. All the sudden, I was angry. I was blinded by rage for a moment, but Brian's screams threw me back to the present.
    "I want you to feel all the pain I've felt since you killed her, you fucking.. you.. fucking.." I couldn't come up with an adjective fast enough to describe the hatred I felt against this man. I raised Alexis and though the three shots I'd fired had left my shoulder a throbbing mess, I could no longer feel it. I shot at his left foot, missed, and Brian immediately skittered backwards. I shot again, this time into his right leg. He screamed with every bit of air left in his lungs. He looked up at me in the last few moments in his life with eyes that would have broken any normal person's heart, and I shot five more times into his chest.
    He sputtered, coughed twice, and then fell over. Brian's head hit the floor with a thud and his life was over. My revenge was complete.

    I fell to the floor, letting Alexis slip from my hand. I was crumpled in a little ball, sobbing. The person was screaming at me to get the hell out of there, but I couldn't move. It was done. I had killed him. Everything I had worked for in my life was done and over. All the memories of Amanda were flooding back to me at once. The way she bit my lip.. the way she smiled at me.. the way her hand always seemed to find a way to work its way into mine..
    I was laying on the floor, sobbing, lost in my own mind when she entered the room from a back hallway. The woman appeared to be in her late seventies, clutching a cane in one hand and a revolver in the other.
    "You killed my boy." She croaked. She had short white hair and veins protruding from her skin. The bags under her eyes looked like they held half her body mass. She raised the revolver to my eye level with one shaky hand, all of her weight rested on the cane.
    "You killed my boy." She repeated. I looked up and tried to get my body to move, but I was frozen into place. I knew I could easily tackle the woman and break every bone in her frail little body, but I was petrified.
    "You killed my boy." I guess it was all she could say. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes, the rest of her face an expression of rage. Her boy? She looked far too old to be his mother. I wondered why I was thinking these things when I knew she was about to shoot me.
    "I'm coming for you, baby." I whispered, and the woman shot. Everything exploded into black butterflies and pain. I heard a few more gunshots before I fell over, right next to Brian, and my eyes closed for the last time.