Alpha and Omega

“Happy New Year! Happy New Year! 1930!” I begged off staying later, the party was fun, but dry. What I needed was a drink, maybe an American bathtub gin or some smuggled Canadian whiskey. No more of this tea and sympathy with the city's elite, sharing small sips of French champagne to toast the New Year.

The hostess had the maid fetch my hat and coat. I offered apologies, lied about having to be somewhere else. As an embassy official to the new Soviet I was included in all kinds of party lists. Americans and their Prohibition, they didn't know how to drink.

On the street I searched for the paper with the address a cabbie had given me. “A good time for all, especially tonight. Jazz, drinks, girls, dancing and upstairs if you have enough money you can get a private room,” he told me.

The rain was cold, enveloping the streets in fog as the rain and the cold concrete buildings mixed together. The lights in windows shone out like beacons from lighthouses lighting the way down the street. The chilly damp air bit in to my bones, a dense chill came over me.

This night reminded me of chasing the royal family. I hunted them down and was proud to be ordered to kill them. I tracked them, one night following the little princess, out for a walk with her dog. Maybe she was ten or twelve, just a little bird-like thing.

Footsteps. “Show yourself. Who's there?”

The fog, the rain, the dark makes it hard to see in the streets. America makes its streets too small. Too crowded, all shoved together. Sounds echo, seem closer, not like the broad avenues of home. The princess never knew I was following her. I watched as her dog nipped at others. She felt safe in the dark, leading me past a church, a closed church, god being outlawed in the new Soviet.

In the streaming light from a window I tried to read my instructions. Whoever is following me is getting closer, hard to tell in these canyons of buildings tenements, the proud homes for the working man.

“I know you are there, show yourself.” Nothing, nothing but fog. I try to conceal myself by laying flat against the wall of a building. Silence. The rain has made the bricks wet, they give off that earthy smell. It reminds me of when I lined up the princess and her family against a wall like this. She didn't cry. I killed her dog and she didn't cry, she started to pray. Her prayers made me mad, mumbling something about her god and being protected. She knelt down as I began reading the charges against her and her family of being gluttons, ignoring the people, of not sharing their wealth. Her father whimpered like the dog after it had been shot. I killed him first. A shot to the head. We all watched as his skull split open and his brains leaked out on to the sidewalk. Her mother started to scream and her brother, her little brother was more of a man than his father. He rose up and attacked me sinking his teeth in to my hand. I threw him against the brick wall and watched as his crumpled body slipped down on to the pavement. His mother, her mother screamed and ran to him, all the while the princess prayed.

Footsteps. Scraping like someone was dragging something. I felt for my revolver, deep down in my coat pocket. Waving my revolver around, I challenged the pursuer to show himself, to show his face. “Coward,” I yelled in to the fog. A can overturned and with my instincts of years as a hunter of men I turned and fired. The bullet ricocheted off the brick walls of the alley, forcing a large cat out.

Laughing, “a cat.” I needed a drink, a real drink. The smell of gunpowder and fog reminded me again of that night some ten, thirteen years ago. I killed the father, the brother. The mother clung to my legs begging for her and her daughter's life, let us go she said and I could have anything.

I kicked her to the ground, smiled and pulled the trigger. I was amazed at my accuracy in the dark.

“Stop the prayers, little princess, it is your turn.” She stood, approached me and placed the end of my revolver at her chest, at her heart. She smiled, forgave me and then forced my hand to pull the trigger. The shot echoed out, her body stood in front of me for what seemed like forever. Then slowly she slid to the ground all pale white with a pool of blood circling her body.

The footsteps grew closer; the scraping noise is invading my head. I turn again and fired wildly in to the dark.

Laughter. “You missed again, comrade hunter.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, comrade hunter, I do. Do you know who I am?”

I fired again the bullet ricocheted around the alley. Another cat screamed in the rain, the fog, the dark.

A shot rang out, the hot metal pierced my chest and I swung around and fell to my knees. My first instinct was to vomit. The pain of the hot metal in my chest was unbearable. I fell to the pavement and laid there. The footsteps and scraping noise drew closer.

“Comrade hunter, you should make sure that your prey is dead when you leave the scene of the hunt.”

“Who are you?”

He walked dragging his leg behind him. “You killed my mother, my father and my sister. You tasted good that night.” He kicked me over with his good leg. “I have hunted you for years.”

“Die you pig,” and with that the lame hunter fired a shot in to the fallen man's head.