IV:In The Red

I suggest you read IV before you read this next installment.

WONLAY

One wouldn’t necessarily call Wontlay a religious man, but he always made efforts to attend church whenever he could. After all, he had to find time to pray for his sins. These efforts were deeply inspired by the fact that he believed he had committed the gravest of sins-TAKING A MAN’S LIFE-on a regular basis. And taking a life also bordered on theft, did it not? He stole what did not belong to him. Wontlay often wondered whether attending church was even worth it, whether God even was listening to all his prayers and pleas for forgiveness. He oftentimes felt that he indeed was the definition of a wretch. All the death, sex and Rock n Roll surely could not earn him a place in heaven; even with all the near tearful prayers.

He didn’t consider himself an alcoholic, but Wontlay had developed a tolerance and taste for vodka over the years. He no longer grimaced when he swigged at the bottle of hard liquor. Like a dreadful vacation, alcohol had become a false escape for him. Yet still he indulged. Wonlay hated his profession, but he regarded it a necessary evil. Someone had to send the evil men of this world to Hades. Someone had to serve some form of justice, even though that justice itself may have been blackened. He took another swig of his vodka and staggered a little on his way to evening mass. The alcohol was working its wicked spell. Wonlay was startled by his phone when it rang. He looked at the phone’s display and squint his eyes to focus. ‘Unknown Number’ it read.

“Hello?”

“You shouldn’t be drinking like that Mr. Wonlay; it’s bad for your liver,” a deeply masked voice said.

“What? Who the hell is this?”

‘’I cannot reveal my name to you. However, I can reveal that I am an enthusiast of your work, and that I would like to issue you a challenge.”

“What I do is very serious, and I do not have time for ‘challenges’, Wonlay replied.

“I do not doubt the graveness of your occupation my friend, what I would like to do is to offer you an opportunity after I establish that you are indeed capable.”

Wonlay thought his caller a joker, ‘What audacity! Friend??’.

“...I am not your friend,” he said. And with that, he cut the line.

Mass would be starting soon. Wonlay took the last gulp from his bottle and tossed it against a brick wall, shattering it to pieces. The alcohol was taking a stronger hold. “God help me.” He said.

The priest had not yet arrived when Wonlay stumbled into the church. It was a dimly lit hall with candles providing the primary source of light. He sat somewhere in the middle of the rows of pews on the left side of the hall. He did this to avoid any contact with the people that like to be closer to the altar, those that would frown upon him if they happened to smell his tainted breath. The rearmost pews were no good either; the father had once called him to sit in front with the rest of the congregation. That had been an extremely uncomfortable experience for Wonlay. Evening mass usually had less people in attendance and that made it a lot more intimate.

Wonlay sighed deeply and began to pray. ‘’Our Father, who art in heaven....”

JUGBEH

There were few things in this world faster than Jugbeh’s gun, like the speed of light or.....the speed of light. And now he could add the speed of Random-Asian-Killer to that list. This small man had managed to evade every single bullet Jugbeh had fired at him. This guy moved like some kind of hell cat, Jugbeh thought.

“There’s numerous ways to skin a cat little man! But of course you should know all about that, shouldn’t you?” shouted Jugbeh,”’coz your people eat cats, don’t they?”

His assailant was silent. Jugbeh knew some kind of psychological warfare usually gave him an advantage over his marks. That last shot at the Asian man’s ethnicity should have hit home at least, considering that his bullets had missed.

Jugbeh turned on to his knee to face the direction of the little man, slamming his arms on the counter and  swerving his aim left and right in an effort to catch the attacker in his sights. He was nowhere to be seen. Jugbeh looked at James; he clearly could be of no help. A dagger lodged in the middle of your face made performing any task extremely difficult after all.

Before Jugbeh could process what he was doing, the little man had moved at blurring speed from the side of the counter Jugbeh had been hiding behind and somersaulted by James’ ragdoll  of a body; dislodging his deadly dagger from James’ temples. The man stood facing Jugbeh with his arms spread and his dagger ready to strike with the ferocity of a cobra. Jugbeh was stunned, and if his life was not in imminent danger, he would have complimented this assassin on how ‘cool’ his move was.

Jugbeh swung his arm and fired a shot, but not before the little man could strike him inside his elbow and disturb his aim. Jugbeh jumped back to avoid the lethal strike of the Asian man’s blade, still it was not enough to miss it entirely. The flesh of his abdomen stung as the blood blotted against his t-shirt.

“Who skinned cat now, huh?” said the little man wielding the blade and smirking.

“Why you little....!!!” Jugbeh fired the last round in his clip and sent the man running for cover.

 He looked under the counter as the little man run and what caught his attention lit up his eyes.

GOMA

Before he stepped out of his car, Goma looked at the Ray Bans on his dashboard and wondered whether he should wear them. He left them and slammed the door, ‘Too cliché’ he thought. There was no expression in his face as he approached the towering church hall doors, even though he had noticed he had sent a few civilians fleeing at the sight of his A.K 47 rifle. Goma smiled inwardly. He knew well that he would not have to rush to avoid the poor excuse for law enforcement, even if any of the frightened people made frantic efforts to contact them. Their almost mandatory delay in their call to action was something that also inspired his change in profession.

Goma had not met his target before, and the caller with the voice distortion on his phone had not given him an explicit description; but it was not hard to spot the mark. Not many people wore immaculately tailor-made suits to church during the week.

“So cliché.”

Goma opened fire. His bullets torpedoed in all directions, munching the church walls and splintering pews. One woman was flung to her immediate death when a bullet hit her and slammed her back into a pew. Her body slid down against the back of a pew, smearing it with bright red blood.

“Collateral damage,” said Goma.

He had now confirmed his target as he saw him skilfully leaping over pews to safety. There was no safety from Goma. Not even in the house of the Lord. He fired more rounds, sending candle wax flying and shattering stained glass to shards. Goma stopped and watched the dust from the mortar as it courted the smoke from the candles.

Goma stood and listened for his target. A canister came sliding down the aisle in between the columns of pews; it had a handkerchief on fire stuffed down its neck. He dove for cover as the pocket size canister exploded and sent little shrapnel and a mixture of the smell of liquor and lighter fluid into the air.

‘Impressive,’ thought Goma. Before he could make a move in retaliation, a number of pews came sliding in his direction, including the one his back was resting against. His target had pushed the rows of pews toward Goma and then ran outside the church as Goma was trying to gain footing.

Goma now had an expression on his face, and it was one not many had seen and lived to tell of it.

BADUK

Dodging bullets was nothing new to Baduk. Looking back over the years, the number of bullets that he had missed had been enough to supply a small army. The big man shooting at Baduk had probably missed because Baduk had caught him by surprise. He would have to be careful with this loud man. He could hear him breathing hard on the other side of the counter. Baduk guessed that they both had their backs to the long slab. This man was probably slow, but Baduk knew he would soon discover his hiding place.

“There’s numerous ways to skin a cat little man! But of course you should know all about that, shouldn’t you?” shouted Jugbeh,”’coz your people eat cats, don’t they?” The man said. Baduk acknowledged that he would have to teach this man a lesson.

He slid carefully on his rear-end and came around the counter as the big man was trying to look over it to see where Baduk was. Baduk flipped towards the dead pharmacist and grabbed his dagger in the process. The shock and awe in the loud man’s face was clear as Baduk stood, dagger ready to make the man take back his insolent words.

The big man fired quickly, but Baduk was a fraction of a second quicker, hitting the man’s arm and stabbing him on a flash.

“Who skinned cat now, huh?” said the little man wielding the blade and smirking.

Baduk was having fun with this one. He ran for cover as the man said something and fired his last round. Baduk had been counting the shots fired after he noticed the loud one was using a Desert Eagle .50. He looked up from over the cabinet he was hiding behind, expecting to see the loud one reloading his gun. What he saw instead confused him. This oaf was taking drugs when his life was in danger! ‘Last wish’ guessed Baduk. He decided to take advantage of the big man’s moment of weakness and reached in his back pocket.

The weapon he pulled out was made of a thin but strong fibre wire with a wooden handle on either end of it. It was capable of cutting through flesh when stretched and tense. Baduk moved quickly and leapt onto the big man’s back, bringing the wire over his head and across his throat.

The man had not seen Baduk coming and he would have been strangled within seconds, had he not managed to get the pinky and ring fingers on his left hand in-between the wire and his gullet. Baduk pulled back hard and tears and mucus began to stream down the loud one’s face. The wire managed to cut through the flesh and bone of the two fingers, leaving only bloody stubs and the big man screaming.

The big man was evidently angered now as he used a significant amount of might to strike Baduk with his gun and throw him off his back. He held his arm up looking at the blood and then at Baduk.

“You little fuck, look what you’ve done to me!”

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