Reece

I sighed with boredom as I sat in the driver’s seat of my car, watching the rain drops slowly trickle their way down the side window. Every now and again I would wipe the condensation away with the bottom of my sleeve so I could see out of the window, keeping an eye on the entrance to the alleyway opposite. The rain still partially obscured my view but I could see well enough to tell if someone came in or out of the alley, and it gave me a certain degree of cover as well from anyone who may walk by and notice me. Not that it would be much of a problem but I preferred to remain as inconspicuous as possible before the takedown; my job is a lot easier if I don’t get nosey busy-bodies asking me questions or reporting me to the cops.
I started humming and began to drum my fingers on the steering wheel. God, this part of the job was boring. I knew I’d have a long wait as I arrived early, but that gave me a chance to check out the surrounding area and also meant that if my target was early then I would be there to bag the fucker. But waiting for my target to come to me rather than me chase him was my preferred method of doing things, in my opinion it keeps things simple. It’s just unfortunate that patience is not one of my virtues and waiting had always driven me mad. Waiting did however give me time to think and nearly always my thoughts would turn to my childhood. As I sat there, waiting, my thoughts sure enough gradually drifted to old childhood memories.

I had a very tough upbringing, an exceptionally unhappy childhood which forced me to grow up early. The first major tragedy was the death of my father. I was only three years old at the time so I don’t remember him and I never had a paternal influence in my early life. But it hit my brother hard. Carl was only ten at them time but was old enough to understand and even at that early age it made him bitter at the world and by the time he was in his teens he no longer cared about anyone or anything but himself. He was of the belief that you should only look out for number one as everyone else will fuck you over if they get the chance and you could be dead by tomorrow so who cares what you do or to whom as long as you end up on top. He became a real problem teen. He had been expelled from several schools and had numerous run-ins with the law over petty crimes but it wasn’t long before things got a lot more serious. He started getting involved in gangs and even lost his right index finger in a fight with a rival gang member. Nothing anyone tried stopped Carl’s downward spiral and inevitably he ended up in prison. He was sentenced to life for drug dealing and first degree murder of two gang members just weeks before his 18th birthday, it would be the last I ever saw of him. That was the final straw for my mother, from then on she vowed never to have anything to with him again, he was not her son. She never visited him in prison once or even attended his sentencing. She had completely washed her hands of him. Carl somehow managed to escape with two other inmates after only a week inside. It was incredible and made all the headlines, although to me it was typical Carl…he would never let anyone stop him.
Carl’s incarceration made life even more difficult. As it had been in the local press everyone knew about it and the kids at school were particularly cruel about it. There were constant jokes and talking behind my back and people began acting differently around me, almost suspicious as if I too were a criminal. Life at home wasn’t much better. My mother had become seriously depressed and refused to seek help, instead moping about the house all day doing nothing except stare at old photos of the whole family together, including dad. Seeing her like this tore me apart, she was all I had now and it killed me to see her so upset. She deserved so much more. And when things seemed as if they couldn’t get any worse they did.
Only a month after Carl was taken from me my mother was taken too. My mother died.
I can still remember it as clearly as the day it happened. The emotions are as strong now as they ever were. It was a sunny Tuesday afternoon in May. I had just made my own way home from school, choosing to walk rather than get on the bus and have to face the ongoing torment from the other kids, and had gone straight up to my mother’s room as she spent most of her time there, alone, since everything had happened with Carl. There was a school trip that I really wanted to go on despite the other kids and I needed her to complete and sign the permission slip, but when I entered her room it was empty. I thought it was a bit unusual but perhaps it was a sign she was starting to pull herself together, so rather optimistically I made my way back downstairs to the living room. I couldn’t believe the sight that greeted me. I fell to my knees and just stared open mouthed in shock. The blood so much blood. It was everywhere, all over the floor, up the walls…and all over my mother. She was slumped on the floor in a massive pool of blood, her upper body leaning against the front of the sofa. Her blouse had large gash in it in the stomach area and I could see her head was dented in, even through the mess of blood. Even at 12 I could tell someone had stabbed her then bludgeoned her across the head with a blunt object. Nothing registered at first, it all seemed like some sort of horrible dream. But as I knelt there, trying to make sense of what my eyes were seeing, it gradually sunk in. She was dead. Murdered. Some bastard had murdered my mother. They’d taken her away from me and now I had no one. Everyone I cared about was gone. How was I going to cope, what was I going to do? A sicken feeling rose from the pit of my stomach and I began to vomit violently. It wasn’t just the images or the awful smell of the decaying corpse in the mid afternoon heat, it was the sudden rush of emotions. Grief, despair, anger…they all hit my at once and overwhelmed me, I couldn’t handle it. I broke down completely, falling over onto my side crying. I felt as though someone and gripped my heart and was slowly crushing it whilst sucking out all my energy and everything that made me keep going, what made me live. I had lost my only reason to live.

The subsequent police investigation turned up nothing. They could find no evidence of who had committed the murder. I was even a suspect at one point, but was soon dropped from the detectives’ suspicions as I couldn’t possibly have been there when the murder took place; I was in school and had plenty of witnesses. Besides, as I said they could find no evidence so the case was soon dropped. I didn’t know it at the time but they never would find my mother’s killer.
After the murder I was sent to live in a care home where I spent the rest of my childhood right up until I was 18. I didn’t go to a foster family as nobody tried to adopt me. Guess it must have me my perceptible surly attitude and outward aggression to the world. ‘Care home’ was an ironic title. What went on in that building could hardly be described as care. I spent six years there. Six years of almost constant abuse, physical, sexual and psychological, particularly from one so-called ‘carer’. I can only really accurately describe him as a rampant pervert. He was very fond of the boys and many I spoke to had been molested by him on several occasions, as had I. Discipline there can best be summed up as violent. Minor infractions were dealt with by dragging the offender down the corridor to his room and beating him to within inch of his life. Even if you hadn’t broken the rules many of the carers just seemed to enjoy beating up the boys they were meant to be looking after. Care was hell, although it did toughen me up, it hardened me, made me stronger mentally and gave me a “fuck you” attitude to the world, which sure as hell helped in my chosen vocation.
The whole time I was in care I never heard anymore about my brother and the police had long ago given up on catching my mother’s killer. I thought about them everyday. The pain of loosing them stayed with me the whole time I was there and it still follows me. That’s what about a year before I got out of care made me finally decide on what I would do once I was let out into the real world. I would become a bounty hunter. I would use the money and information I could gather from the cops to find my mother’s killer and maybe even track down my brother. Chances were he was already dead, but at least then I’d know for sure instead of living the rest of my life in uncertainty, wondering what ever happened to him, and I’d make my mother’s murderer pay for what he did.

And that is what brought me here, eighteen years later, sitting in my car in the pouring rain at dusk, waiting for some scumbag to show up so I could grab the son of a bitch and take my $50,000. So far I’d had little luck in tracking down my brother and my mother’s killer so in the mean time I was making a good bit of money catching wanted criminals. My latest target went by the name of Steve Mason. The police knew this was an alias but they did not know his real name so knew little about him or his past. All they knew was that he was smart and vicious. He had been on their top ten most wanted list for the last five years for drug dealing, trafficking and a whole string of police murders. The cops knew the places he operated and where he sold drugs on the streets as a sideline to his main drug deals but had yet to catch him. They had tried numerous times to go in undercover, but Mason seemed to be able to smell a cop and every undercover officer they had sent in had quickly met a brutal end, often being tortured to death, and it was becoming difficult to find knew volunteers to infiltrate his organisation. The cops had also tried raids on his premises before, to catch him red handed but so far he had always escaped, usually leaving behind a trail of dead or wounded cops. But now it was my turn, and I hadn’t lost a target yet. My plan was to wait for him to show up, apparently this alley entrance was a regular haunt of his for small time drug selling, pretend to be a user looking to buy and then take him down while he was fishing out the drugs. The cops had tried similar approaches before but as I said, Mason could smell cops at a hundred paces…but I wasn’t a cop.

It was still raining. I glanced briefly at my watch; 20:00. He was due anytime now. I wiped the window once again with my sleeve and stared hard, concentrating on the alleyway across the road. After only a minute or two a darkly dressed figure walked past on the other side of the street, stopping as he came to alleyway and leant against the wall of the building to the left of the alley’s entrance. I waited a few minutes more to observe his actions, making sure it was Mason. Soon he was approached by a person wearing a red hooded pullover. I could just make out the new guy handing over something to the other person and taking something in return, immediately slipping it into his pocket. It was Mason. It had to be. I checked the Colt Python (four inch barrel version) I always carried with me, making sure it was fully loaded and ready to fire, just in case, and sat it down on the seat next to me. I had always chosen revolvers over automatics, even though revolvers don’t hold as many rounds as a semi-automatic pistol they do have the advantage that they much harder to jam, and in the middle of a shoot out where you’re fighting for your life the last thing you need is a jam. Besides, if you’re a half decent marksman you don’t really need more than the revolver’s six rounds.
I waited another few minutes, just to make certain it had to be Mason and to prepare myself and get just the right moment. It wasn’t long before the right moment appeared. Mason hadn’t had a customer for a about five minutes and the street seemed to be fairly quiet. Or at least I couldn’t se many people through the rain soaked windows. I got out the car on the footpath side and closed the door, deliberately not locking it in case I had to make a sudden run for it or chase after him and needed to jump in the car as quickly as possible. I had another quick glance up and down the street…still seemed fairly quiet. Good, the less people there around the less of them there are to screw things up or get in the way. It was now or never. I crossed the street and headed towards Mason. As I got closer to him I could see it was definitely him, the police had shown me enough surveillance photos of for me to recognise him instantly. He was dressed all in black with a leather waist length coat, using the overhanging roof of the building as shelter, all the time looking about him checking for cops. He saw me crossing the street and kept his eyes on me the whole time as I approached.
“Hey.”
“Hey man. So, what you lookin’ for? I’ve got just about anything and everything you need.”
“I need some Judas dude.” I tried to act like I was desperate, and at the same time cautious in case anyone overheard.
“Ha-ha, can do man. How much?”
“I don’t have much, just whatever I can get with this.” I handed Mason a handful of bills, probably totalling just over a hundred dollars. I didn’t even know myself how much I handed him.
Mason took the money and began counting it. Now was my chance, I could get my gun him while he was distracted and put it to his head before he even knew I’d moved, he wouldn’t have time to draw his own weapon. I put my hands behind my back, lifted up my shirt slightly with my left hand and went to grab the Colt with the other. Nothing. Shit! My gun, where was it! I must have left it in the car. Fuck! How could I be so stupid! I didn’t have time to fuck about. I swung my right fist round from behind my back as hard as I could and struck Mason low on his left cheek. The money fell out of his hands as he stumbled backwards and hit the wall of the building behind him. He quickly composed himself and started to draw his gun. I couldn’t rush him before he’d have his gun fully drawn so I turned and ran back towards my car, trying to turn at random points so I wouldn’t be running in a straight line making it harder for Mason to hit me. I got half way across the road before he fired his first shot. Luckily it just missed me and went through the back passenger window of my car. I heard people screaming as I made another sharp turn left and another round hit the car door, right in front of where I had been before I turned. I then made a sudden right turn and dived behind my car. I knew cars didn’t offer much protection for bullets but I no other choice for cover and hopefully pistol rounds from that distance wouldn’t go straight through both sides of the vehicle. There was another two loud “bangs” in quick succession, followed by the sound of the bullets hitting the car. I had to get my gun, if he hit the fuel tank I was screwed. I heard a woman scream and then there was silence. I waited a few seconds but there was no more gun fire. Damn it, he’d probably made a run for it but in case he hadn’t I quickly crawled to the car’s front door, instead of getting up and running. I opened the door, took the Python from the passenger seat and closed the door again. I made sure the gun was ready to fire and slowly peeked over the front of the car.
Mason was still there, but he was now standing behind a young woman with his gun against her temple.
“Who the fuck are you man? You some sorta cop?” Mason was shouting so hard he was going red in the face. He was obviously taken by surprise and was panicking, not something I had expected him to do after hearing about how calm and cool he was supposed to be. “Throw your gun over here now you fuck!”
I raised my body slightly and raised my hands in front of me, pointing aiming the gun at Mason.
“I’ll fucking blow her brains out man I swear!”
I should have put down my gun and let him go, there was an innocent persons life at stake. But I guess pride got the better of me and I didn’t want to let this son of a bitch go. I hadn’t lost a criminal yet and I wasn’t about to now. All I cared about was catching this bastard, he was mine. I took a deep breath in, aimed the sights at Mason and squeezed the trigger. The woman screamed as blood spurted out of Mason’s right shoulder and he yelled in pain. His gun dropped to the ground as soon as I’d hit him and the hostage was now running like a maniac down the street. I stood up and ran towards Mason, who immediately began running in the opposite direction down the alley, his left hand holding the wound. I stopped and aimed again. Mason was in a straight line in front of me, no problem. I squeezed the trigger again and Mason dropped like a lead weight. He was alive, I’d only shot him in the leg. The cops always say “wanted dead or alive” but dead always causes too many awkward questions to be asked. Alive is harder to achieve, but much less hassle in the long run.
I walked quickly over to where Mason was lying, keeping my gun on him the whole time in case he tried anything. He kept trying to get up but he couldn’t weight bear on his left leg. I shoved him to the ground and sat on his back so he couldn’t struggle and grunted into his ear, “You’re mine now asshole,” as I grabbed his wrists to handcuff him. As I looked down to fasten the cuffs something caught my attention…his finger was missing - his right index finger. My God, could Mason be...no, it was impossible. I mean what where to chances? I stared down at the missing digit and without thinking uttered breathily, “Carl?” Mason stopped groaning and swearing.
“What?”
“Carl,” I repeated.
“How the fuck do you know my name man?”
“Carl Joelson?”
“Who the fuck are you?” I put my gun against the back of his head.
“Shut up and answer the question shit-head. Are you Carl Joelson?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m Carl Joelson and who the fuck are you?”
I sat in astonishment. Mason was my brother. After seventeen years of searching I had finally found him, and he was a no-good drug dealing murderer. I would have almost preferred him to be dead rather than to have turned into this bag of shit under me. I could have cried but I tried not to let my emotions get the better of me otherwise he might overpower me and escape. He may have been my brother but he was still a dangerous man who had killed countless numbers of people and I was going to make sure he paid the price, and I was going to make sure he knew who put him away.
“Don’t remember me eh Carl? Don’t remember destroying our mother with your behaviour? Don’t remember getting yourself thrown in jail then escaping and going missing for over twenty years, never bothering to try and find me to let me know you were okay?”
“Reece? Jesus, is that really you man?”
“Yeah it’s me,” I said with some aggression.
“Fuck me man! How you been?”
“Shit. How about you?” There was no compassion in the way I spoke, only aggression and sarcasm.
“Great man, I’m stinking rich!” What, did he expect me to happy for him or something? He really was an asshole.
“That’s lovely, now you’re going to spend the rest of your life in jail.”
“You can’t turn me in man, I’m your brother.”
“Watch me dickhead.”
“So you’re gonna betray me and hand me over to the cops, just like mom was. I really don’t want to have to kill you too man.”
His last sentence took me back. I was shocked. Surely it couldn’t be true. Even he couldn’t have murdered his own mother, especially in such a violent manner.
“What?” I asked, audibly shocked and distressed.
“After I escaped I came to her for help, but she refused and said she was going to call the cops and turn me in. And I didn’t want to go back to jail man. She had to die.”
I felt the anger rise through me. All I could feel was a vicious indignation towards Carl. He had ruined my life and taken my mother from me. Images of my mother lying there in her own blood, her head beaten in, kept flashing through my mind. With each one my anger grew until the rage filled my body and took control. I grabbed a handful of his hair and leant forwards as I pulled his head up towards me.
“Fuck you!” I shouted into his ear. I pulled his head back further, then shoved it as hard as I could down into the concrete floor. I heard his nose snap and as I lifted his head back up I could see several of his teeth lying in a puddle of deep crimson blood. I smashed his face against the concrete again. Then again. Then again and again. I kept beating his head off the floor repeatedly, each smack harder than the last. I yelled, “Die you bastard!” as I continually pummelled his head, then as my rage reached its climax I yelled at the top of my lungs as my last, most furious head-smashes shattered his skull completely, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Eventually my energy drained completely and I stopped. Now I felt nothing, nothing at all. Just drained physically and emotionally. I looked down at Carl. He was definitely dead. He lay lifeless, his face resting in a slowly expanding puddle of blood, teeth and bits of flesh. I had found my mothers killer, and no he too was dead. I had finally found him and made him pay. He was not my brother; as far as I’m concerned my brother died the day he was put away. He was no brother of mine.

And that’s the story I told at those big white gates. The only cold blooded murder I ever committed, the only man I ever killed not out of self-defence, but it was enough. My attempt to justify it was inadequate. That is why I am now here, in Hell. At least, I think it’s hell; every day I am confronted with the image of my dead mother, I must relive that moment over and over but yet something is wrong. The afterlife is not it seems without a sense of irony. For my brother is here with me and everyday I get to make him suffer…over and over and over. Nothing has ever given me greater, endless pleasure.