EYEHEARTZOMBIES

Marcus was in a van not too far from my house. He had driven Joe over tonight after having him follow me home that afternoon. The spineless bastard could send a kid in to rough me up, but he felt he had to give him a lift there and back. Such caring.

Joe pointed the van out to me when we were about a block away and asked me to let him go. I held onto his arm until we got to the van. I made him knock on the back door and I heard Marcus call “Who’s there?” from inside. I shook Joe when he didn’t answer back.

“It’s me, Marcus. Joe.” He looked like he was about to puke.

“What? Why’re you back so quick?” Marcus sounded scared, worried. He had learned a lesson this morning about fucking around with the bosses and their workers, but he hadn’t learned it well enough, apparently. He knew enough not to believe a fifteen minute whack job, though.

“He…he wasn’t home, Marcus. I’ll go back later. He wasn’t home.” Joe heaved a couple of times and I knew it wouldn’t belong before his dinner would be all over his feet. I just hoped Marcus came out first. Tossing your cookies was hard to pass off as normal behavior.

I heard Marcus unlock the van door and slip it open a bit. “Well, nothing you can do about that, I guess,” he said, and stuck his foot out the door. I grabbed his foot and pulled, knocking him off of his feet and spilling him out of the van. He tried to grab the door on the way out, but missed and fell flat on his back on the ground. I had let go of Joe to grab Marcus’ foot and he was already taking off down the block. I heard him stop about halfway down. Marcus had recovered enough control of himself to see who had yanked him out of his van and managed to get out “The fuck’re you — ” before I hit him in the head with the hammer.

His eyes glazed over and he went limp with the first blow. I hit him again and blood spurted up into the air, getting on my shirt and face. His legs twitched and I heard a cough and splash as Joe started upchucking on the sidewalk behind me. I hit Marcus five or ten more times, not really keeping count. I was sick of two-bit fucks like him and all the trouble they caused. If you’re going to do a job, do it yourself and make sure it gets done right. These penny-and-dime hacks like Marcus, the ones that sent out fifteen-year-old girls to whore themselves on corners, the ones that sold drugs to kids in school, the ones who sent kids like Joe into people’s houses to kill someone. These people sickened me and I took out all the anger on his body. I crushed his ribs, I broke all the bones in his face, I hammered his fingers into pulp. I stopped swinging when my arms burned and my back ached. I was covered in blood.

Marcus had parked his van in an abandoned lot about five or six blocks from my house. It was a lot toward the business part of town, away from the schools and churches. I searched through his van and found another gun, this one a bolt-action rifle. I fired a few shots through his van and used my pocket knife to slit three of his tires. I wanted it to look like a rival pimp or street gangster had decided to finish Marcus off. It must have worked; I never heard about it again.

I walked back to my house, climbed my own back fence and left my bloody clothes in the shed. I went through my yard naked and showered once I got inside. I buried the clothes the next day under one of the flowerbeds in the backyard. I also called Ray and told him that Marcus wouldn’t be showing up in Houston. He understood, but felt I should move on to Vegas a bit sooner than expected. I went home and packed that afternoon, and drove off in the Plymouth by six o’clock.

Like I said before, I’m a company man, I do what I’m told.