Reprisal

Chapter 3

I felt the adrenaline pumping in my veins while I was driving through the small city of Woodcrest. Hank had told me that Billy was currently residing in some dilapidated house at the end of an almost deserted street - apparently, the money from our raid was all used up. I stared at the lonely streets while my fingers tapped on the steering wheel to the sounds an old Breaking Benjamin album blasting out of my Honda's speakers. Occasionally, there was a cat strolling around in some dark, deserted corners, looking for some left-overs, and in the windows of some of the houses, I could see the lights shining onto the front lawn. Most of them looked as poor as you'd expect in that part of town, but it still made me a bit sad and melancholic, knowing that although in the first few years of his life, Billy Madden had been looking at a bright future, the decisions he had made had left him no other choice but to turn his back on said future and pushing himself further down the path of crime and living among the scum of the earth.

Out of nowhere, a chirping sound pulled me out of my thoughts. I stopped the engine, trying to figure out where it came from, until I realized it was my phone ringing in the glove compartment. I opened the hatch and stared at the display.

Emma. Shit.

I paused to think for a moment, to consider if I should be picking up her call or not, then I decided that the only thing that would happen was that she would make me turn around and postpone my revenge plan to another day, and I couldn't afford it. I had made up my mind, I had thrown away the best job opportunity an ex-con could wish for and nothing and nobody could change my mind anymore.

I threw the phone back into the glove compartment and started the car again. I slowly drove down the street, getting closer to Billy's place, and the phone kept buzzing and ringing. Just as I thought of turning it off, it stopped - just to start again a few seconds later. I cursed, and for a moment, I almost ran over a trash bin that had rolled right onto the street. I swerved around it, praying that nobody had heard the tires screeching on the asphalt. The closer I got to Billy, the more adrenaline and rage boiled inside of me - and the more the buzzing and ringing got on my nerves. For a split second I thought of just picking up; maybe it was something important, maybe Emma had locked herself out of her apartment and needed a place to stay, or she had brought dinner to my place and it was getting cold. But then I shook my head, thinking more of her as a control freak, seeing her constant calling as nothing more than her way of keeping me from doing what was the one thing I knew I had to do to set the record straight. Maybe it wasn't a nice way to think of the only person who had been by my side for the past five years, always believing in me and never giving up on our future together, and in my mind, I decided I would make up for it when I got back home. Maybe a nice dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant. Or a trip to Broadway. Emma had always adored New York and the buzzing it exuded. I nodded to myself. That sounded like just the right plan to propitiate her.

But now I had to finish what someone else had started.

I switched off my phone just as I turned around the last corner and had a first look at my old friend's place. It was the saddest sight I had seen since the day I stood in front of the door of the prison cell I'd spend the last five years of my life in. The roof was leaking, missing some shingles, and the shutters were only hanging on one of their hinges. There was a slight smell of decay in the area, and something else, something metallic, pungent...

Blood.

I stopped the car, hesitated for a moment to give my mind a chance to reconsider. Then I grabbed the gun from the passenger seat and made my way up to the steps. I walked over the front lawn crunching slightly under my shoes, and my ears were sensitive to every single sound around me as I tried to be as silent as possible. Only then did I notice something at the far end of the house, almost hidden behind a huge, overgrown hedge. My heart stopped and sweat started spreading out on my forehead. I blinked several times, the gun in my hand feeling slippery, as I tried to realize what I was seeing.

A car. A bright red Toyota with a small plastic penguin hanging from the rear view mirror, looking exactly like the one I got Emma when she passed her driving test 6 years ago. Suddenly, all the pieces fell together.

Emma's constant, bugging phone calls the past half hour. Emma's red Toyota in this dilapidated part of town. In the driveway of the house that my nemesis was supposedly hiding in. The smell of blood.

Emma.

I forgot about every prudence I had managed to stay aware of since I drove my car into this part of town and rushed over the lawn of the old, shabby building in front of me. I bolted up the stairs and through the doors with the gun grabbed tight at my side, ready to be used immediately.

"Emma!" I screamed as soon as I ran through the door. My head turned from left to right in one single motion, and my gun was pointed right in front of me while I rushed through every single room without even caring of what might await me on the other side of the doors. My blood was pumping in my veins while I frantically searched for any sign of my girlfriend.

"Emma!"

I ran up the creaky stairs to the first floor, but apart from some dirty clothes that were scattered all around, there wasn't even a sign of anybody living here, and in my panic, I started to think whether Hank had been right about this house, or whether I had just lost my mind. I decided it was time to find out.

"Billy!" My voice sounded like it was coming from someone else, croaky and raspy, as I felt the rage inside of me boiling over. "Billy! Where are you, you fucking bastard?! I know you are here you coward, come on and show yourself!"

Suddenly, I heard a shuffling noise coming from downstairs, and I bolted down the stairs to the main floor, where I stopped for a moment and listened. I couldn't see anything, but then I noticed a small, dark painted door to my left, and when I walked towards it, I noticed small spots on the floor that turned into a trail the closer I got to its entrance.

More blood.

When I knelt down and put my fingers down in disgust, I felt something that at the same time scared me to death and put me at ease. The blood was still wet, and, more importantly, still warm.

I heard the shuffling noise again - it came from the stairs that led away from the door right in front of me and down to the basement. As careful as the adrenaline in my veins let me, I shoved myself forward step by step, trying to block out the metallic smell intensifying with every step, listening to any sound that could reveal to Billy I was coming for him. Because now I had no doubt anymore that he wasn't just hiding out in this shabby location, but that he had also been waiting for this moment as much as me.

When I reached the end of the staircase, the metallic odor of blood almost threatened to over-whelm me, and I had to put one hand over my mouth to keep myself from throwing up. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness in the empty basement, they followed the trail of blood into the far end corner of the room, where a very small window gave light to the otherwise pitch-black surroundings. And what I saw made the blood in my veins freeze and wish that I was caught in a horrible nightmare I just needed to wake up from.