Messenger

The club stank of smoke and the faint scent of vodka. Neon lights flashed incessantly in a blur of green, orange and blue while I puffed on a cigar. It was cuban, imported and smuggled in from Havana. Music blared around us, and my head was pounding. Another puff. God it felt good. But the pounding was getting worse the longer the music went on.
Across from me was Alex. He was wearing a nice suit, with a slick black tie. I couldn't see his face though; he wore the mask of a lion.
“Could you ask for them to turn the music down?” I asked. Alex stared at me for a minute or two, the black holes he had for eyes almost looking through me, then nodded toward the DJ. Slowly the music grew a little softer until it was only a whisper. A nod of thanks, then another puff. The smoke billowed around my head and I coughed.
“It's strong, ain't it?” said Michael. He sat to my left wearing a black jacket and a red tie. I couldn't see his face either. He was wearing the mask of a zebra.
“Yeah it is,” I replied as I took a swig of vodka. Bitter, but satisfying. “How'd you smuggle em' in?”
“We've got friends,” said Michael. “Friends with influence.” I nodded as I took another puff. The lights and smoke had blended together and I thought I was blowing out orange smoke. My head was still pounding. Maybe it wasn't the music.
“So,” Alex said, his voice low. “Y'know what you have to do?”
I nodded. “What's the address?”
To my right was another guy, Jack, dressed in a grey vest with black pants and a white tie, sitting in a chair. He was wearing a cat mask. He leaned over and handed me a slip of paper.

13695 W. Park Avenue
10 PM
Don't Be Late

I slipped the paper in my pocket and took another drink. It felt like I was drinking fire, but it felt great.
“You'll find what you need behind a bush beside the building,” said Alex. “But that's all the help you're gonna get.” I nodded. I was used to these kinda jobs. Michael leaned in a little closer.
“You'll be paid over the course of the month, five hundred dollars every week until you have the full two thousand,” he said. His voice was grainy and heavy. I nodded in agreement. Jack tapped me on the shoulder and put a white pill in my palm. I took it and downed it with the last of my drink. I immediately felt lightheaded.
“We're counting on you, Chaser,” Alex said. My head was pounding, heavier and heavier. The colors all blurred together until there was only blackness, and when I came to I was lying on my back on a concrete floor with an empty room around me: no lights, no music, no DJ, no masks. I took a look down at my watch: 9:30. I had time. I walked out of there and got in my car, a white VK Commodore with pitch black tires and a dark grey lining across the sides. I drove through the city, looking at all the things happening; whores on the corners, thugs in an alley, a fight on the steps of an apartment building: par for the course.
At 9:50 I got to the address. It was a section of an apartment complex, run down with graffiti across the sides. There were broken windows, trash. Cigarette butts lined the sidewalk leading up to the doorway. On the sides were the bushes, wild and overgrown. I sat in the car for a minute and lit a cigarette. A puff, then another. I breathed it in slowly, savoring it, then blew it out as small embers mixed with the smoke in the air around me. I felt alive right then. The preparation, the anticipation of it all, it was a high I couldn't have achieved anywhere else. My hands were shaking, and my head was still pounding. I got out of the car.
The street was empty, save for a stray cat or the mad shouts of a drunk old man. I stayed in the shadows as I moved toward the bushes. I peeked over the frayed bushes, and on the other side was a shotgun, made with black gunmetal. Beside it were four cases of twelve-gauge slugs. I loaded the gun, careful that it wouldn't jam, then shoved the other bullets in my pocket. I moved toward the front door, making sure that my footsteps were silent. The door was wooden and obviously worn. I could easily bust it down. I put my ear to the door. I could hear two men talking. They had accents, probably mexican. I could take them. I stepped back, took a puff, then dropped the cigarette and smashed it under my shoe. I braced myself, then ran toward the door.
Time didn't seem to exist as I smashed the door down, with my shoulder taking the full brunt of it. It crumbled before me like it was tinfoil. In the split second of chaos I saw all around me; to my left was an ugly looking bastard with a knife. To my right, near some stairs, was a tall guy with a pistol and crooked teeth. Their eyes were wide with shock. I swung the barrel of the gun toward the guy on the stairs and fired, and an explosion of sound filled the area. The slug nearly tore him in two. Ugly dropped the knife as he turned and ran. Too slow. I turned the gun toward him, fired. The bullet riddled him full of holes and he fell with a scream. I heard shouts and footsteps from upstairs. I took two slugs from my pocket and loaded them in. There was red all around me.
I stepped over the body and ran up the stairs. Near the top was a bald guy in a suit. He turned, I saw his eyes go wide in fright. I moved quickly, stuck the gun into his chest and fired. His body burst like an over-ripe fruit, and the walls turned a deep shade of red. Beside me a few doors swung open and out came some guys with pistols; one even had a machine gun. One of them fired from behind the door as he used it for a shield. I ducked and fired at it, the door was torn apart, and the guy tumbled over with his chest ripped open and splintered with wood. I stayed behind the railing of the staircase as I looked around. On this floor there were only a few rooms, about three or four. I knew the guy I was looking for was somewhere here and probably in one of them, but I didn't know which. I ran from behind the railing and dived into the nearest room as I heard a round of gunfire sail around me. I rolled and moved toward the wall as I looked around. The room was empty; nothing but a bed and the smoke of a burnt out cigar as it wafted through the air. I took out a few slugs and loaded them in the gun, my wrists twisting expertly as I had done before. I licked my lips while I did it and I tasted blood.
I moved against the wall toward the door, shuffling as I went. I quickly peered out and saw one of them hiding behind the bannister at the top, his gun pointed toward the door. I heard a scream from upstairs, a woman's. For a split second he turned toward the sound, and I stuck the shotgun out the door and fired. With the roar of the blast I saw his skull rip open and his brains splatter the wall. I heard the other man cry out in fear and run toward a window. His eyes were wild as he tried to pry it open. I moved up behind him and stuck the gun into his back. I heard him gasp, then pulled the trigger. The blast tore through him and shattered the window, sending dozens of broken shards across the floor. A moment later I heard another scream, a woman's, only this one was different. I looked to my right, toward the inside of one of the rooms, and there, huddled underneath the blanket on a bed, was a woman, shaking. She had pure blonde hair and blue eyes. She was crying. I walked toward her, and she whimpered as she hid herself underneath the sheets. I walked over and stopped right beside her bed, hovering over her as she shook and cried underneath the blanket. I look over at the window in the room and saw high heeled shoes with a fifty dollar bill stuffed inside.
As I stood over her I said, “You shouldn't have been here,” then stuck the gun up against her. She whimpered again and I fired. The blanket muffled the sound of the blast a little.
I walked out and moved up the stairs. There was blood all over my shoes, and there was a trail of red footprints leading all the way to where I had started. I was like Billy, from Family Circus. The wooden steps creaked underneath me as I approached the landing to the third floor. I could hear whispers and the faint sound of another woman crying. I raised the gun and peeked over the railing and saw three apartment doors. The crying came from the one at the far right near a window that overlooked the silent streets below. I tried to move quietly, but I knew they knew I was coming. He knew Alex had placed a hit on him. I was the messenger, here to send the letter.
I moved in front of the door. There was a welcome mat. Cute. I loaded some more slugs in, raised the gun and kicked the door down. The wooden door crashed to the floor, and the woman inside screamed bloody murder. And there he was. He sat on the bed, his gun pointed at me, but he didn't fire. I could see the wild terror in his eyes, and with the way his hands were shaking he probably would have shot the wall and not me. The woman huddled underneath his arm and cried. The man put an arm over her and looked back at me. “Who are you? What do you want?” his voice quivered.
“Alex sent me,” I said as I raised the barrel of the gun. It was a clean shot.
“Who?”
I pulled the trigger and fire and metal erupted from the gun as the both of them were engulfed in the flame. Red sprayed across the bed and most of the room in a display akin to throwing out a bucket of paint. And there was silence as the sound of the shot slowly faded around me. It was nice. I could still smell the smoke as it lingered through the room. I just stood there for a minute, looking around. Then my head started pounding again. It was like a truck hitting me. I kneeled on the floor as I held my head in my bloodied hands. It was even worse than it was in the club. It was like a bass drum constantly beating inside my head. I felt lightheaded and dizzy. I looked around, then at my hands and realized that the blood was melting off and I looked around me as the inside of my head constantly pounded. The room was melting around me, the floor, the ceiling, the halls, the red it was all melting like snow around me and I tried to grab the floor and it went through my fingers like water and then the red mixed with it and it was all around me and I saw the woman and the man and Ugly and the tall guy and the whore in the bed and I saw the fire as it escaped the barrel of the shotgun and I saw their eyes go wide in fear, I saw me pulling the trigger and I saw the sea of red cascade around me like the ocean and then I saw me kneeling in the room with sweat pouring down my face.
I was breathing heavily, and I could taste the sweat on my face as it mixed with the blood on my face. I put my face in my hands and I looked through my fingers around me. The room was different. It looked nicer. There were pictures on the wall. There was nice wallpaper. I looked at the man in front of me as he lay face up on the bed, his body mangled. I didn't see the gun in his hand. I looked over at the woman, no the girl, as she lay facedown in a little nightskirt, her face non-existent. I managed to stand up and went back down stairs, the shotgun still in my hand as it hung toward the ground. I looked in the room nearby and saw her body under the darkened blanket. The shoes and money were gone. I looked and saw everybody there as they lay down, perfectly still. The guns were gone. I put my hand into my pocket and the note wasn't there anymore.
I dropped the gun, it clattered to the floor, and I walked back upstairs. I looked and saw the night sky through the window on the wall. It was silent for a minute, then the sound of sirens pierced the air like a knife.
For some reason I didn't care.
I went into the guy's room, walking through the red on the floor, and found a lawn chair under the bed. I grabbed it and brought it into the hall outside and I set it down and I sat. And I waited. For what, I don't know. For the siren's, for the sunrise, I didn't care. I just waited, looking toward the staircase, maybe hoping that someone would come up and look into my eyes and see nothing there but black holes staring right back.