Sixteen: The End

As promised, here is the end of Memoirs of a Vigilante. Thank you for reading.

Kelly has that pallid hue of sickness, a combination of inactivity and artificial light. Her hand is  skinny and frail as I hold it, but her eyes are alert. Life crept back into her. For that I am eternally grateful. 

With her free hand, she picks up her soup and sips it like hot coffee.

“I know this is awful,” she says “but right now hospital food is haute cuisine.”

“Beats a tube down your throat, for sure.”

“Rocky told me you’ve been busy while I’ve been out of it.”

I nod.

“Tell me. All of it.” She has an iron in her gaze that betrays the frailty of her body. She needs to know. So I tell her. I tell her of walking into Luìs’s backroom and the events that lead to his death, about the fights with Lenny and Tank Daddy, about getting shot in the ass, about Bebe and how I still don’t know what happened to her. I tell her about hunting down Bulldog. I tell her about shooting and killing Muerto in her hospital room under her bed. Through it all, stares straight at me.

“That’s about where you came back in and I left for a while,” I say.

She takes her hand from mine. Her eyes fix on a place near the muted television. “And…you think you did this for me?”

“That’s how it started.  I know there was something else going on with me, too.”

Kelly keeps looking at the spot near the TV. “You hurt people.”

My shoulders are tight, my spine stiff. “They were bad people, Kelly. Lenny killed Jerry Gold. Luìs was blackmailing Symphony into prostitution.”

“And Bebe?”

“I…” I start to say that she had a gun on me, but I don’t. That had been the line for her. For me, too.  I can’t swallow away the lump in my throat.

“I never wanted any of this,” she says, looking back to me. “You started this for me. It’s like I had a hand in hurting these people. And the damage they did to you—” It’s all coming out of her now in a rush, everything she’s been sorting out. “Rocky told me that if you had been anywhere else but in a hospital when you fought Muerto, you’d be dead now.”  

I’m aware of how much I’m not meeting her gaze.

“What sort of man does this?” I finish for her.

She nods. Tears sneak out of her eyes, running down either side of her reddening face. She looks like someone who’s been caught in an artic blast. I look at her fully. I’m scowling hard, trying to hold back everything, trying to find air and a way to talk. If I can only find a way to say something else…but I can’t. I’ve nothing left to say.

I stand. I take one last look at her, memorize the details, soften them into the memory I want, and limp out of the room.

Fourteen and Fifteen

Two for one tonight. Those of you who have been following this story for this long, I thank you. As a way of making up for the long delay, I offer you two chapters in one post. The story is almost done, folks, and I promise I'll have the end up next week. Again, thanks for reading and leaving comments!

Fourteen: Culminating

Angel Muerto and three other men climbed out of an H2 Hummer in front of my house with automatic weapons at 9:18 PM.  My house is well back off the road, surrounded by trees. They have no need to hide their intent from passersby. At 9:18:20, the crescendo to the nearby town’s Italian Fest started. At 9:18:22, Muerto’s three men opened fire.

            The hardwood trim around the front door splintered and cracked. The storm door ruptured metal as bullets pierced it going in, then popped back out off the steel security door behind it. The men spread out, reloading their AK-47s, perforating siding, shattering windows. Kelly’s good china disintegrated into dust. The big screen cracked and sparked. I could see the good wood work I’d made, a cedar chest, some end tables, shudder and split. The rest of the destruction I could only hear. Glass cascaded on the floor in between the staccato weapon fire. Metal bonged hollowly or whizzed a ricochet. 

Rocky is somewhere in the woods with a hunting rifle and a his chrome .40.  I’m kneeling behind a stone and cement barricade I made twenty feet across from my house. As luck had it, we’d been out planning this when Muerto showed up. Our plan had been to bail out the back door, split up and run around behind them. It probably would never have worked. Not with the firepower they brought.  The police will notice eventually, despite the fireworks. We can just sit tight until they get here.

But sitting around isn’t my thing anymore. I have Rocky’s AR-15 and my own nine-mil on my hip, not to mention a few other surprises. And, as one of the men closest to Muerto and the Hummer goes to the back and pulls out two cans of gasoline, I decide I really don’t want my house burned down in front of me. True, it’s better than having it burn down while I’m laying inside bleeding, but a man gets sentimental about things like his homestead.

He heads for the house, but Muerto stops him. Muerto hasn’t fired a shot yet. He stands, surveying. He can tell something’s not right. I had left the lights and TV on to make him think I’m home. He’s not buying it. He looks around. I can’t wait any longer.

I heave a Molotov cocktail at the Hummer. Rocky knows it’s the signal and a crack louder than the AKs rips from the forest. Just as the bottle smashes against the black finish of the SUV, a bullet punctures a gas can the man was holding and keeps right on going through him.

I lose Muerto in the firelight, but put the scope on one of his henchman. I catch him center mass in mid turn and he crumples to the ground. Another shot from the woods is answered by AK-47 fire from the last remaining henchman. Rocky will have to take care of him, because I can’t see him from this side of the house. That leaves Muerto for me.

I sprint low through the woods. I can hustle because the roar of the barbequed Hummer is covering any noise I make. I need to change position from where Muerto last saw me, but I can’t run blind. I have to get an angle on him, but not one he’d expect. I’m not up against Tank Daddy or Lenny here. A guy with who earned the nickname Death Angel from a South American drug cartel is no sweetheart. I’ve tried to tip the advantage in my favor; I know the terrain, and I’ve already enraged him enough to get him to challenge me on it.

Despite this, Muerto appears from a tree in front of me. He doesn’t see me at first and we both to a little jump as we recognize each other. I fire as he fires. Bullets zip past my right ear and I recoil behind a thick pine tree. Muerto does the same.  It’s darker in the thicket with the only light from the burning truck. The flames dance and cast moving shadows. I can’t tell shadow from foe, but I can’t stay here. I have to circle around on Muerto.

I slide back from tree to tree, working clockwise to where I last saw Muerto. I have to figure he’s doing something similar. I’m methodical. No need to rush this. It feels like forever, but I know it’s only a few minutes and the police are still far away. I need to end this tonight. This boogie has been a long time coming, and I’m going to play the final note.

I see the fire reflect off something slick and shiny. Muerto’s coat. I fire three shots as quick as I can pull the trigger. The coat falls off the limb it was hanging on.

A trick.

I turn but already know I’m too late. Maybe if I’m just quick enough, I can shoot Muerto as he hits me. I almost want to close my eyes, but don’t. I don’t want to walk around eternity not knowing what hit me.

Except he’s not there. I crouch and scan the woods, straining my ears for any sound other than burning truck. Then I see a flicker of movement, out in the open, moving toward the house. It’s Muerto running in his shirtsleeves. I raise the rifle to my shoulder, but he’s around the other side of the burning Hummer before I form a solution.  His rifle lays on the ground.

I didn’t figure him to be a runner, but I’ll chase him to ground. Trusting the other henchman to Rocky, I sprint after Muerto. He’s in the garage door and I can tell his plan. He’ll be in luck, as I’ve left my keys in the ignition of my F-350. The garage door is only partially raised before he rams my truck through it. I dodge the debris and venture in side. The keys to the Chevelle are in the pocket of my overalls, hanging on the peg next to the door. I rip them from the pocket and jump in the car.

The squeal of the tires on the concrete floor of the garage almost drowns out Rocky as he runs toward me, dropping the gunman he’d been dragging toward the house. He hollers and waves for me to stop, but I’m not stopping. The monster in me is drooling and pulsating; it needs to be fed tonight. Tonight, I will follow Muerto to darkest corner of the world. Or the darkest corner of my being.

Fifteen: Endgame

Muerto sped down the twisting country road and the vigilante followed him. He did not bother to berate himself for the fouled evening at the vigilante’s home. When this was over, someone else could revisit his transgressions. He had known the risks in tracking his foe to his lair, and those risks had been realized. It was not important now.

The big truck was no corner carver, but the mighty engine kept him ahead of Spears. He might have been in trouble had he really wanted to get away. That was not his plan.  Muerto only needed enough lead to get to the endgame slightly ahead of the vigilante. Every time his pursuer tried to get near him, he used the bulk of the pick-up to block off the road.

Eventually, the trees thinned to nothing and the lights of civilization beckoned. He crossed from the county road into the main drag of the city, then immediately cut the truck into the side streets. He navigated the maze precisely, aware of the headlights in his mirror. As he penetrated deeper into the heart of the city, he wondered when Spears would realize their destination. Would fear grip him? Would he do something foolish? What would his face look like when he walked into the final trap?

The man called the Death Angel smiled as he thought of it. He had resigned himself to the real possibility that this would be his last night. But so would it be for Spears.

And for the woman who had started it all.

Muerto cut the truck sharply so that it raised up on one side, then saved it. It crashed back down on its shocks with a thump, wallowed, but made the turn still upright. The tall hospital loomed in front of him. He angled through the parking lot for the loading dock in back. Behind him, Spears almost T-boned another car his frantic pace. He must now know the plan, Muerto thought. A cold little smile cracked one corner of his mouth.

Muerto vaulted out of the seat and up on to the loading dock while the truck rocked from the sudden stop. Two men moving supplies in the big doors yelled at him. He shot both with his handgun without breaking stride. He’d have minutes before security would react, and eternity for his plan to unfold.

The ride up to the ICU gave him a chance to catch his breath. When the doors opened, he pressed the ground floor button on the console. He didn’t want Spears getting lost. No, he’d leave a nice trail for him to follow.

*

Two men are laying on the ground, bleeding. Muerto must have shot them. They’re still breathing, but I can’t do anything for them now.

I’ve been a fool. I’d thought Muerto had these rules. Rules against killing bystanders, against killing women. But tonight he’s breaking these rules, and that’s what scares me the most. I though I had him figured out.

I round the corner from the loading dock just as the elevator opens. I can guess where it just returned from. The ride up is hell. I’d always thought the ride to hell would be going down. I can’t catch my breath. The air in here is too close. Just like the walls. I feel every shudder as the car clicks past the floors. Too slow. I want to claw my way up the levels until I can get to Muerto, to Kelly’s room.

The door finally opens. A woman in scrubs lays moaning on the floor, blood forming a pool beneath her. A security guard is sprawled on the ground, motionless, handgun still in holster. I’m vaguely aware of other people crouching behind counters, trying not to sob as nightmares from Columbine, Luby’s and a dozen other news footage horrors replay in their heads. I can stop this for them. But I’m not here to save them this time. Only one person matters to me.

I skid to a halt outside of Kelly’s room. It’s too quiet inside. How will Muerto play this? Will he blast me as soon as I enter, or will he drag out his last stand? I can’t take the risk that he’ll kill me before I can stop him from killing Kelly. I take an empty bedpan from the supply cart next to me and throw it in the room. I’m in right behind it. I try to see everything at once: the wall next to the door, the inside of the bathroom, the space next to Kelly, everything. Muerto’s not here.

Then I see him under the bed. He fires twice and something goes very wrong in my body. I want to fire at him from my feet, but my feet don’t seem like they’re there anymore. I squeeze the trigger and bullets fly from the gun. I can’t tell where they hit. I can’t see if I’ve shot him. I can only see Kelly and I’m falling, falling…