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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