Chapter Text
“James Warwick, you have been found guilty of extortion, abuse, deception, and corruption by the jury of your peers.”
The man sneered at James, the muzzle of the pistol leering at his chest. James imagined it may have even been one from the plant, his own name burned across, Warwick Arms, in fancy script. Behind him, the voice of Joe Hall, and many others. His factory employees from the budding union. Hall had even been his personal assistant for 3 years.
“You’ve been a parasite on your workers, James. For your crimes, you have been sentenced to death, effective immediately.”
James choked on angry words, trying instead to burn his vicious gaze, tearing with fervor, into Hall’s eyes. The man only looked on like he was watching an animal do tricks.
“Any last words, Warwick?” The safety clicked off against his thin ribs.
“Maybe tell us how that bonus you gave yourself can buy you a nice casket?”
The sound cleared his mind for a moment, leaving the man to try and gather his rage up like he was rolling a spitball.
“Fuck you, Hall.”
The world burst in his ears, he was struck back with the force of all creation, and then he heard nothing.
The gravel of the dark back road digging into his back was the first thing he felt as James rolled into agonized consciousness. It was surprisingly easy to command his slack arm and run his fingers on a tacky spot on his chest.
‘Nice shot, Hall, but no dice,’ he thought to himself.
He staggered dizzily onto his feet, bathed in the headlights of his car, the one his conspirator employees left him laying beside. They must have deemed taking it too suspicious and their cheap boot prints had been swept away with broken Colorado brush. He could envision the story they hoped to sell now, ‘CEO of Firearms Factory Takes Own Life with Company Made Weapon.’ As if anyone would buy that. The gun in question caught the light, smoldering yellow-white across the steel. The branded calligraphy was dusted with sandy earth though it still gleamed cleanly once he ran the heel of his palm over it. The irony of it all, Hall and his gang had tried to stomp him out with his own eternal legacy. Doomed to fail from the start. The magazine was empty, not that he would need it, but he tossed it on the pristine passenger side floor of the fine car. He had other weapons at his disposal.
The air was turning chill, even for fall in Huerfano County, but he didn’t bother with the heat. He was parched though, it was a good time to stop in somewhere for a drink.
Warwick didn’t drop into dives much, he was more of a coffee and juice bar man of the modern day. But it had been a long night, the perfect time to indulge a little. He pulled a coat on over his soiled button up, to think it had been pressed so fine just that morning…
It was just the sort of atmosphere he wanted, though he would’ve ordinarily turned his nose at the smell and noise. It was dark and loud with music and cheap TV and the room felt more crowded than it was. Chewed taxidermies of jackalope and bison hung on the unfinished wood walls. I should get a bison head myself,’ he thought, ‘where else but the rocky state can one enjoy it?’ The only patrons there at that hour were the stagnant sort, marinating like cheap meat in their poisons. He looked over their slack and bumbling bodies, their clothes and colors were crude to the businessman, and he put a snub eye on each in his line of sight. The bartender approached him with exhausted courtesy, leaning on the dirty wood with fatigue. “Can I get you a water to start you off, sir?” He asked him. He evidently thought he was going to be there a while. James crinkled his lip distastefully, “No thank you. I’m only meeting someone here for a moment.” The man accepted it without complaint and turned to sweeping peanut shells off the bar.
Warwick’s eyes slid over the figures in the bar like oil on ice, and he was rewarded with the hard-lined face of Mathew Berkely, Hall’s old buddy, bent over a tall glass of foam. He almost leaned right into his drink, his gaze empty. Warwick was behind him before he could snap back into the present, and he clapped a hand on his shoulder with delight.
“Berkely! Excellent seeing you here. Awfully late though, isn’t it? Tomorrow’s shift is just around the corner.”
He grinned at the disbelief in Matthew’s face like he’d just told a joke, the seated man’s mouth only formed dumb words at him, twitching into disparate shapes. Warwick could see his pupils in his wide eyes, dark and bloated with alcohol and he smiled broader.
“You don’t look so good, Berkely. Let’s see you to a restroom.”
He gestured for him to stand with one smooth wave and Berkely complied like a man in a dream. The CEO wrapped his arm behind his neck, guiding him to a corner lit with a sick yellow bulb, and behind the men’s door.
As soon as they were inside, Berkely stumbled backwards, out of his easy grasp and into the side of a grimy sink. Warwick allowed him with a patient smile, dropping his free hand slowly beside him. Berkely jerked back to the porcelain bowl, gagging and coughing.
“What’s wrong, Berkely? Perhaps you need some water?”
He vomited into the sink and his whole body clenched and shuddered with the effort.
“No…” he spat between gasps. “They told me you were dead! What the h-… hell-!?”
There was fury and nauseated horror in his watery voice. Warwick took his shoulder again soothingly.
“I think you’re confused, Berkely. I’m very much alive, see?”
The man craned his head up, spit crawling from his twisted mouth, level with the cracked mirror. He may have screamed at what he saw, or didn’t see, rather. Warwick was nowhere in the reflection, and a tight grip suddenly crushed his throat.
Warwick pulled the man’s head back with a snarl that broke his smooth lips. He tore at Berkely’s throat and his jugular opened like a burst pipe. The yellowed tile splashed with red as Warwick took his fill and dumped the twitching corpse over them with disdain. He hated the taste of beer in his blood.
He stopped to wipe his lips and face with a paper towel from the dispenser. ‘A parasite, was I?’ He licked two gleaming fangs. I’ll show them a parasite.’
“Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it?”- Count Dracula, Dracula, Bram Stoker.