Wrath White - Scabs

The silver and gray werewolf stood to his full seven-foot height, with bits of flesh from my amputated arm clinging to the fur around its snout, which was dark and shiny with my blood. He still had those big puppy-dog eyes, but his snarling predatorial grimace didn’t look quite so dopey with the two-inch canines and rows of jagged teeth lining his mouth. I had no idea how to kill a werewolf; I’d never really believed they existed. If I had, I would have been expecting Bill Vlad to eventually put me in with one. I was happy to see that the thing’s arm was still broken. At least it could be hurt.

He came at me fast and low. Before I could defend myself, Choirboy had already ripped open my belly exposing my bloated intestines. Bleeding badly and mortally wounded. I launched myself at it and trapped and snapped its limbs while it tore at me rending my flesh from my bones. All I had to do was kill the thing, and Vlad would get me to a doctor and stitch me up. Then I would take the money, and Babygirl and I would move away from this place, go somewhere, and get married. This was definitely going to be my last fight.

Choirboy broke free and we backed away from each other. He dragged his shattered hind leg and cradled his broken arm with his eyes still blazing with fury. I held my intestines in with one hand and planned my next attack. Even injured, the choirboy was still dangerous- perhaps even more so. His fighting spirit mirrored my own. He would not quit. But he could definitely feel pain.

I began to circle him for the kill. I had broken his leg now along with his other arm. I was just about to charge in and go for the thing’s throat when that sound of bones breaking and popping started again and I could see the bones slipping back into place under the creature’s skin. Choirboy was regenerating. The blood spurting from my severed limb seemed to be slowing down, as was the flow coming from my eviscerated torso and lacerated throat. I was getting dizzy. I had to kill this thing before I bled to death. Choirboy was now fully healed. I watched him flex his now fully rejuvenated arm and rise on his newly healed leg. Steeling myself for another brutal attack, I swore again that this would be my last fight.

We charged each other, and I released my fury, letting my savagery rise to match that of my opponent’s. I gouged its eyes as it tore a chunk out of my thigh. I split its skull with an elbow, sending a fountain of blood erupting into the air like a burst water main as it slashed its claws through my cheek, causing the flesh to hang from my exposed cheekbone like moth-eaten cheesecloth. Seizing one of its claws in a wristlock, I broke its arm once again. Choirboy howled and this time it sounded less like pain and more like rage. I looked into his big, vulnerable, puppy-dog eyes just before he clamped down on my throat and I felt sorry for him. After this victory, who knew what type of abomination Vlad would pit him against. Even as the Choirboy’s murderous jaws crushed my esophagus, I knew that both of our lives were over. I was better off than Choirboy because I could not feel the pain of my death. Choirboy would feel every minute of his slow death night after night in this blood-soaked cage, fighting beasts most humans were lucky enough to believe were fairy tales and myths. I was finally free. I could hear Bill Vlad off in the corner consoling a conspicuously affluent woman, sitting just outside the octagon cage, who was horrified by my imminent death.

“It’s okay, honey. He can’t feel a thing.” He said. And for the first time in our acquaintance, he was right.

Perdition’s Flame

Jason’s Nike Air Jordans turned the puddles of rainwater into temporary airborne projectiles that sprayed into the air with each footfall, drenching the bottoms of his jeans before settling back to earth calmly in his wake. His denim-coated shins parted the mist roiling up from the sewers and soaked his socks. Jason’s feet were already numb and he’d been shivering uncontrollably for days.

Cars hydro-planed through the larger puddles in the street, splashing Jason’s coat, washing off more of the blood the endless downpour had been unable to erase. Jason watched the long spirals of red run off his raincoat and drip onto the sidewalk. It was almost pretty. The rivulets racing down his face and clothes, dripping from his fingertips, looked like watercolors from one monochromatic palate. The blood never went away no matter how much it rained, no matter how many showers he took, no matter how hard he scrubbed. His own tears joined the cascade.

Ghosts haunted his footsteps, seethed even in his own shadow. He had killed so many children now that it felt as if every inch of his skin was crawling with their vengeful spirits. Over and over he dragged his jagged nails over the surface of his skin trying to scrape their lifeless forms from his flesh, but they would not go away. They held tight to him, burrowing deeper than he could scratch. He could feel their spirits clinging tight to his own. At times, Jason could even feel their tiny spectral fingers tugging at him, deep within him, trying to pull him from his own flesh, trying to drag him off to their side of eternity.

Each time a child passed him in the street, he wondered if they were real or one of them, one of the dead, one that he had murdered. Their wide innocent eyes bore deep into his, accusing, demanding, condemning until he turned away in shame. He heard their laughter in his dreams. Heard their screams and cries even when he was awake. He could hear them even then as he made his way through the rain-soaked streets. They had still not forgiven him… even after all this time.

Jason thought that perhaps if they had graves. Maybe if he could have laid them to rest in hallowed ground they would give him peace. But that was impossible. Their bodies were long gone. What was left of their bodies after he was done with them had gone into an incinerator or landfill somewhere. He honestly didn’t know what happened to most of them. All he knew was that they were gone, unsalvageable.

Sometimes the faces of the women, the mothers, were even worse than the kids. They had all been too young to know, some, too young to even scream. But the mothers had known. They had known what he was doing. They had come there looking for someone with his skills so he had performed for them. He had taken the life from them, sucked it from their wombs, and now they would never leave him in peace.

The rain dripped from his nose just as a young boy stepped from the shadow of a nearby alleyway, pointed at him, then dissolved into the sewer fog. Jason wondered which child that one was. It could have been any of them. He’d never even gotten to see their faces.

Jason turned the next corner and sat down in front of the abortion clinic he used to work at. He paused there a moment to collect himself. Rethinking his life as he unwrapped the package under his raincoat and stuck it behind the front door of the building. He had taken so many innocent lives at this place, halted their existence before they could even truly live, before they took their first breath. Atonement would not come easy. Perhaps, it would not come at all. Still, Jason knew he had to try.

Jason scratched at himself again and almost cried out when his hand came away from his neck bloody. The blood of the children he had murdered. He wiped at the back of his neck again before he realized that he had scratched his neck raw. His own blood. Not theirs.

The bomb had not been nearly as hard to make as he had thought. Gasoline, nitrogen-based fertilizer, laundry detergent, put it in a big jug and you’ve got something very similar to napalm. Perdition’s flame.

For some, a religious epiphany is a great thing, a liberating thing, like being born again. For others, it is like dying, like being flayed and crucified but never knowing for sure if you will be resurrected, never knowing for sure if you deserve to be. Jason was not hoping for resurrection. All he was hoping for was absolution.