Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

He flashed a bright smile at the younger woman, the one he was going to have so much fun with in a couple of minutes, and then glanced at the old hag to make sure she was still tightly secured in her chair. She was. The duct tape appeared intact.

He had taken a chance dealing with the knock at the door before securing the younger bitch to a chair. Had she been thinking clearly—and quickly—everything could easily have gone to shit for Milo in a matter of seconds. But based on the dynamics he had observed during his disturbing visions of these three people and the short time he had spent here in person, he had anticipated that when he went around the corner and answered the front door, the rattled younger woman would be so concerned about her injured boyfriend she would run to his aid, not even giving a thought to releasing the older woman or rushing to the kitchen for a weapon or to grab the phone.

And he had been right. The pretty young thing was even now crouched over the man Milo had stabbed, thus blowing any chance she might have had to get away.

Because now it was too late.

And she wouldn’t get another chance.

And the best part of all—the delicious cherry on top of this exciting dessert—was that her desperate efforts to assist the man were clearly going to be futile. The boyfriend was still breathing but it was obvious to Milo, who had plenty of experience in this particular arena, that the guy was well on his way to checking out. His skin was bedsheet-white and his lips were turning blue and his breathing was shallow and ragged.

Milo nodded to himself, impressed with his handiwork. All that damage from one knife wound! Granted it was accidental, the result more of luck than skill, but the end result was all that mattered, and this was something to be proud of in any event.

Now that he had a moment to catch his breath, he thought back to what the cop had said at the front door, and how it might affect his plans. A call from a neighbor concerned about the resident at this address. A resident who happens to be a lady.

Apparently the neighborhood wasn’t quite as deserted as he had originally thought. Someone had seen him enter the house and had alerted the police. And killing a cop, although every bit as satisfying as he had always dreamt it would be, had ensured that he would receive a visit by more of the fucking cockroaches before long.

A lot more. And they would be angry.

But Milo wasn’t concerned. He had three hostages with which to bargain. Well, two, once you eliminated the chair-smashing hero, who was clearly not long for this world. One, actually, now that he thought about it, because after he finished with the pretty young thing currently blubbering over the unmoving body of the chair-smashing hero, she wouldn’t be worth a damned thing as a bargaining chip. She was the reason he had come here in the first place and he had every intention of finishing what he started, law-enforcement cockroaches or no law-enforcement cockroaches.

But one hostage was plenty, anyway, and if it turned out that the authorities weren’t in a bargaining mood, so be it. It wasn’t like he had never considered the possibility of taking a bullet to the head. People with his…unusual…interests were universally misunderstood, and Milo had always accepted the possibility he would one day go out in a blaze of glory. If that day happened to be today, he was ready. He wasn’t particularly enamored of the idea, didn’t consider himself suicidal, wasn’t looking forward to dying, but found that the idea of going out in a dramatic showdown didn’t bother him all that much, either.

The woman crouching next to her boyfriend looked up at the sound of the cop’s head striking the floor. She had removed the injured man’s shirt and used it as a makeshift bandage, rolling it up and fastening it around the injury, then closing the gash by tying the sleeves together. It was clever, Milo had to admit, and seemed to have done a pretty good job of slowing the bleeding.

It wasn’t going to make any difference.

“Well, ladies, that was exciting, wasn’t it?” He turned his smile in the direction of the trussed-up old bitch in the wooden chair, but she had screwed her eyes shut. She sat rigid and unmoving, seemingly trying to disappear into thin air through sheer force of will. He shrugged. Oh well . It would have been nice to get a reaction, but she wasn’t the reason he was here, anyway.

“Your boyfriend is one brave motherfucker,” he said to the younger one, whose eyes were fearful but also watchful and wary as she gazed up at him. “Stupid as all get-out, there’s no denying that, but he’s brave. Unfortunately for him, his pain will be emotional as well as physical when he sees what I have in store for you.”

“He can’t see anything,” she spat back. “He’s unconscious, you stupid bastard.”

Milo narrowed his eyes and glared at her. The hatred he had felt the moment he saw her in the first vision ratcheted up a little higher. He was used to commanding submission and fear, but while this one was clearly afraid, she didn’t seem to understand her place in this hierarchy. She would find out soon enough.

He held her stare for a moment, then turned and stalked into the kitchen. He grabbed another chair to replace the one the unconscious hero wannabe had broken over his back, and returned to the living room where he set it down next to the old biddie. Then he nodded at the man on the floor. “Put him in this,” he said.

“He’s too big, I can’t move him.”

“Shut up and do it,” Milo said, taking one step forward, reaching for his knife.

The pretty bitch had stopped crying, but her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and now they widened with his approach. “I’m afraid if I move him the wound will start bleeding again. I don’t think he can afford to lose much more blood,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper.

“Well, he should have thought about that before he attacked me with a fucking chair!” Milo was trying to control his temper, but the very sight of this little bitch pissed him off to no end, and her back-talking and sassy attitude were making it immeasurably harder to do. “So I don’t give a fuck about his little razor-nick. If it bleeds, it bleeds. Now drag his ass over here and dump him in the chair.”

“No.”

Before he even realized what he was doing, Milo had taken three long steps across the room. He yanked the knife out from behind his back and knelt down next to the dim bitch. She leaned away from him but otherwise held her ground. Milo waved the knife in front of her face, then placed it against the unconscious man’s throat and smiled at her. “Your choice,” he said, speaking slowly. “Put him in that goddamn chair or I’ll finish him off right here and now.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered, and got to her feet, then leaned down and hooked her arms under her boyfriend’s armpits, much as Milo had done with the dead cop a few minutes ago. With a grunt she began dragging the slack body of the much-larger man across the room.

Milo nodded his approval. “Good choice,” he said, and observed the blood, indeed, begin once again to bubble through the already-soaked shirt. The process of the young woman pulling the body to the chair was resulting in a gush of blood every time she yanked. It was like watching an EMT doing chest compressions on a patient with a hole in his chest. It was almost dreamily hypnotic. Pull, bubble, rest. Pull, bubble, rest.

Finally the chick reached the empty chair. Milo looked at the older one again and now her eyes were open wide. She stared in horror at the scene being played out just inches away. Milo felt a surge of savage excitement and almost laughed out loud.

The younger woman leaned her boyfriend onto the chair. His bloody chest was laid across the seat and his head flopped down on his arms. The girl was breathing heavily, almost panting from the energy she had expended moving him. He probably weighed close to two hundred thirty pounds and she was a tiny thing, probably no more than one-ten, so obviously it had taken all of her strength to drag him across the room.