Catharsis [Novel]

CHAPTER SIXTY

CHAPTER SIXTY

            The money forms a small mountain on the worn carpeted floor, and as far as I can tell there is even more here than at the previous location.  Now that I'm not solely concentrating on the two men who have been shooting at me, I notice piles of green papery cloth on almost every surface of the room: tables, chairs, counters, a ratty blue ottoman next to a couch.  Their organizational skills may not be the strongest, but they certainly seem to be able to bring in massive amounts of money quite effectively. 

            "I think I'm in the wrong profession," I say while staring around me at all the liquid income lying about.  "Oh wait," I continue.  "I don't have a profession."  Then I remember the overturned table next to me and the two men lying crumpled on the floor mere feet from where I'm standing.  "Well, except  for robbing you guys, I mean.  But I'm not sure that counts as an actual job yet."  I smile at them even though they can't see me.  "I really think it's more of a hobby, personally."

            A quick scan of the room doesn't reveal any useful duffel bags this time (I'll need to remember to start bringing those with me from now on.), so I'll need to improvise in order to get this cash out.  I certainly don't want to carry it out by hand, fistful by fistful, so I start thinking creatively.

            Looking at all the objects in the room - overturned table, small coffee table, moaning men, piles of cash, tattered couch and matching loveseat - I remember a thought that had occurred to me earlier: boys playing with making a fort.  Couch cushions make for a good fort (at least they always did for my sister and I growing up and playing in our family room), and even better is that most cushions have a zipper on them so you can pull out the foam and wash the cloth outside (I found that out the hard way as a kid when I scraped my cheek on an exposed zipper while playing in our fort.  That memory has stuck with me: soft, comfortable things can sometimes bite you when you least expect it.).  If I can unzip some of these cushion shells, then I'll have an instant (and impressively homemade) sack in which to store the money.

            The couch and loveseat combine to give me six useable money containers (A few were too ripped to hold anything, and two had stains on them that scared me too much to touch.  I'm not sure what these guys did in their free time, but the last thing I wanted to do was get a whiff of it and find out.), which I waste no time at all filling with the cash.  The fatter the bags become, the heavier they are, and their heaviness forces me to use more of the darkness to fuel my strength so that I can lift them.  The system is creating a tradeoff that's beginning to scare me, especially since I can feel the darkness pulling me towards the two men on the ground.  It wants to feed so that I can remain strong, but I don't want to give in to it (I really don't want to give in to it ever, but I understand it is now a part of me.  An unwanted part, but still a part of me I have to live with.).

            As part of my inner compromise, I use as much of my strength as I'm able to while still pushing the darkness down and ignoring whatever my senses try to tell me (Mostly it’s images of how delicious the nearby hearts could be.).  It's a taxing and distracting process, but a necessary one for what I need to do.

            Once I've managed to stuff the six, ugly brown cushion-sacks with as much money as they can hold without splitting open, I begin the arduous task of dragging all of them through the house and towards the front door.  They are too unwieldy and heavy for me to just pick them all up and lug them over my shoulder, so I've resorted to piling them all on top of each other and just pulling the entire pile behind me.  It may not be a pretty method, but it's getting the job done.  I know I can't get them home like this, but as long as I can get them all outside then I can dump them and let the neighborhood consume what I can't carry.  My main goal is to just not let these guys reap the monetary benefits of their foul deeds (And maybe to keep a little for myself and for my family.  I think I deserve a little something for all my work in this.).

            I get my makeshift train to the corner of the front hallway before I have to finally pause and rest.  The darkness inside of me is screaming to be released and heard, and the more I squash it down inside of me the more insistent it's becoming.  I don't know how much longer I can keep this up.  I turn to look at the front door to measure how much more distance I have to go when I see him.  There's a tall, well-dressed (his shirt and suit jacket do not fit with tonight's drug thug theme at all), dark-skinned man standing just a few feet away from me in the open doorway of the house.  His body is smoking like he's on fire, or recently been in a fire, and I realize his nice clothes are actually covered in soot and charred around the edges.  His expression is blank, but he's staring right at me.

            "No," he says in a low, gravelly voice that I'm guessing is raw from either yelling a lot or maybe smoking too much.  "You're done."  He doesn't scream the phrase at me, but just says it simply like it's a matter-of-fact.

            And then three things happen almost at once.  He blinks slowly.  I don't know why my attention is draw to his brown, hooded eyes, but they are.  There is very little emotion behind those eyes (I've heard they are supposed to be the gateway to the soul, and if that's true then this man has a very empty one.) as they slowly close and reopen. 

As the darkness of his pupils reappear from behind his eyelids, I hear a very distinct click come from somewhere near his belt.  That's when I notice the thing I hadn't been paying attention to since the guy's surprising arrival:  the large shotgun in his hands down next to his hip.  Hindsight tells me that I shouldn't have been so dead set on ignoring the darkness and what it wanted to tell me.  That may have been a fatal mistake.

            A mesmerizingly beautiful blossom of flame erupts from the end of the shotgun's muzzle, and I have just enough time to realize what is going to happen and try to move to the side to avoid it.  He is no more than a dozen feet from me, and I know no amount of inner darkness can get me moving fast enough to dodge what is coming.  This is going to hurt.  A lot.

            Or maybe it isn't going to hurt at all.  Maybe this will stop all the hurt from ever happening again.

            As the first molten pellets from the blast begin to tear through my skin, I give in to the darkness and will it to save me.  Its warmth floods up through my gut in a race against the heat from the lead now entering my body.

            This is a race I'm not destined to win, though.