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He stood over the mangled corpse before him, and wondered if he truly had a name anymore. Well, perhaps that’s not the right question; as a matter of fact, he had many names. The earliest ones always stood out to him, Rasmus, Tony… but the one he found himself latching to was the first, Richard. In his youth he would have found it funny (Richard, Dick, rooster, cock, ha ha), but something about the name stuck to him. You ever read those books about World War 2 that have all the weapons? Guns, tanks, planes. The Brits tried to make a sticky bomb that usually just ended up sticking to the guy trying to throw it, which couldn’t end well. Maybe those books were why he joined up in the first place? But either way, it was like that in a way. Something that stuck to him just to explode in his face.
The smell of blood hit his nose, and it all came back to him in an instant. He looked around, shuffling off his daze, at the corpses strewn about him. An axe resting in some lower intestines. A knife in an eye socket. A man gurgling, lungs presumably punctured after the hit from the bat. He had only vomited once, after his first call. No, it really wasn’t the call that bothered him. He had gotten used to doing this during the war. It was that hobo that got to him. But one of them was going to die, and it wouldn’t be him. It wouldn’t be him.
He pulled off his mask, folded his jacket over his arm, and walked to his car. Better not to be recognized for this sort of thing. He changed in his cramped DeLorean. Hurt like a bitch, but better than being caught. He threw his bloodied clothes in his duffel bag, got out, and stuffed that deep in the trunk. His first time, he didn’t think to bring a change of clothes. Probably for the best he didn’t stop anywhere after that, other than the drop off. When he got back to his apartment and threw the keys on his counter, though, he saw the state the arm of his letterman was in. Absolutely coated. So, he started bringing a change. Always nice to get a slice or a drink – especially a drink – after this sort of business.
How hadn’t they found him yet?
Ah, well, in due time. Maybe they wanted him doing this. Presuming the force hadn’t been completely paid off, which seemed reasonable considering they hadn’t raided his place yet, a lot of those guys probably wanted to see the Russians brought down. Just had to operate within the whole ‘law and order’ thing. Luckily, he didn’t.
Was it really lucky? Maybe a better question, why didn’t he stop? All it would take was ignoring the phone. If they came for him, which was a big if, considering they were presumably too chicken shit to do anything but pick up the phone, what could they really do to him? A man of his caliber, with his skills, there probably wasn’t shit they could do. But it wasn’t really about fear, was it? As much as he would like to pin it on them. They weren’t anything but facilitators, a motivation to get out and do the only thing he could do anymore.
He had come to Miami once when he was a kid, with his dad, on a business trip. There was something special about the city then, and although it was a bit darker now, that shimmer was still there. To a lot of people it was a city of pure partying, of nothing but sex and coke, but it was more to him than that. There was some undercurrent, some hard to explain life to this whole place that sucked him in. Hell, that was the whole reason he had moved here after the war. Not that much of the West Coast was habitable anymore, but…
He thought about his buddy sometimes. Maybe that was why he did it. But still, it was a bunch of Ruskie higher-ups that let the nukes fly, not these peon gangsters. Revenge against them really wasn’t revenge against anybody in particular, except for maybe himself. Maybe he could atone for everything he had done in his life, maybe he could atone for the whole damn war he had taken part in, if he could just lop the heads off enough guys with a machete. But that was pretty stupid, wasn't it?
Revenge for his girlfriend was sounding pretty good as of late. God, his girlfriend, it was so nice to be official with her. The shit those scumbags did to her made his blood boil, but fuck, it wasn’t worth getting worked up about right now. But still, maybe that was a decent reason to keep going. He couldn’t bring his friend back, of course. He couldn’t get at the guys who had destroyed his country. Hell, the people who had been hurting his girlfriend were already buried. But maybe if he kept going, the only ones that had to get hurt going forward were him and his targets.
Pulling into his place, he hauled his duffel bag out of the trunk, slung it over his shoulder, and started up the steps to his apartment. She had started cooking for him when he went out, which he appreciated endlessly. She still wasn’t big on intimacy, which he completely understood, but he felt like a highschooler again the way he looked forward to cuddling with her every night. Her head pressed into his chest made him feel like what he was doing was all okay.
The door was unlocked, so she was up. He threw his bag off to the side, and crept towards the bathroom door. He had accidentally scared her once like this, and that led to a pretty bad night, but now she said she was coming around to it. Apparently she missed being scared in a good way, which he didn’t quite understand (he couldn’t even do horror movies), but the heart wants what it wants. Swinging in the door, he gave a sharp “Boo!”, and saw her lying on the floor in her own blood. She was riddled with bullet holes, and his heart came to a halt. He knew what dead looked like, and it really looked like her, but he had to check the apartment before he checked her vitals, and clearing out to the left, he saw a man in a rat mask in plain view sitting on their couch.
“Ah, there you are! I was wondering when you’d be getting back. Well, let’s get this over with then…”
He felt a sharp pinch, then saw his ceiling, then black.