12 Gauge Rage by Ryan Jackson

It’s 2 A.M. and Tommy’s buying coke from an eight-year-old kid.

He slapped some crumpled bills into an ashy, little palm through the car window. The whites of the kid’s eyes blazed in his tiny, black head. The rest of his features remained cloaked in shadow beneath the hood of his Champion sweatshirt. Reminded Tommy of one of the Sand People from Star Wars.

The kid leafed through the wrinkled c-notes, and then tucked them into his pocket. He reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a twisted up baggie filled with a few grams of coke, 3.5 grams to be exact. He handed the 8-ball to Tommy through the window.

“Did you finish your home work for school tomorrow?” Tommy asked the kid.

The kid smiled at the joke, revealing a mouth full of gold teeth. Tommy grinned back and drove off.

Tommy’s Honda Civic weaved through the boxy-maze of project buildings.

As he drove he wondered if the kid’s gold teeth were permanent, and if they were, what would happen when the kid started to lose the rest of his baby teeth? He also wondered how high on the list of low things he’s done in his life does scoring blow from a little kid rank? It’s certainly up there he thought.

But it wouldn’t rank so high on the list after he’s finished doing the things he’s going to do tonight.

Things he needed to be high on blow to go through with.

Things like murder.

The Civic parked in front of a tall project building that looked exactly like the other twenty project buildings that surrounded it: fucked up.

Tommy sat inside the car emptying the 8-ball onto a worn-out steno notebook. He used his Macy’s credit card to chop up the cocaine. Made two long, fat lines. Pressed his left nostril closed with his index finger. Brought the note pad up to his face and snorted them both up his right nostril.

The coke was stomped on garbage. Cut with too much Johnson & Johnson’s. He knew he would have to snort the whole damn 8-ball in order to get a decent high.

Tommy wanted to go back and kill the little bastard. He just might once he was finished with the business at hand he thought.

The rest of the coke he chopped into eight fat rails, which he bumped up his nose.

Tommy looked up at his glassy-eyed reflection in the rear-view mirror when he finished. Ran a hand through his silver hair. Wiped his coke-covered nose. Rubbed the excess powder on his gums.

He got out of the Civic and walked to the trunk. Opened it, reached in, and pulled out a 12-gauge Mossberg pump shotgun. Eight round capacity. Seven in the tube and one in the chamber. Slammed the trunk closed.

***

By the time Tommy stepped out of the piss stained elevator onto the 8^th floor the coke had kicked in.

He marched down the trash strewn hallway feeling invincible.

Rap music boomed from one the apartments at the end of the hall, filling the corridor with muffled bass.

Tommy stopped outside the door of the apartment where the music was emanating from. Pounded on the door with his fist. Pressed the shotgun right up against the peephole. Waited until he heard a voice directly on the other side of the door.

“Who is it?”

Tommy pulled the trigger. The shotgun blasted a jagged, softball-sized hole in the door, and in whoever’s face was on the other side of it.

He cocked the Mossberg, sending a smoking shell cart wheeling to the floor.

Tommy backed up. Blasted the upper and lower corners of the right side of the door. Shouldered into it.

Inside the apartment the hinge blown door slammed down on top of the corpse of the door answerer. Tommy walked over top of the door like it was a drawbridge into the apartment, the music now blaring unsuppressed in his ears.

A young thug stormed out of a back room, shirtless and wiry, looking like E.T. covered in shitty tattoos, and gripping a Mac-10 machine pistol. Tommy’s shotgun roared, blowing E.T. right out of his Jordan’s.

As E.T. crashed to the floor, an Oak Tree of a man in a wife beater charged into the room firing a Glock. Bullets whizzed past Tommy as he squeezed the trigger of the 12-gauge and chopped the Oak Tree in half. Blood and smoke danced in the air.

Tommy moved through the apartment, stepping over the bodies of the two men he'd just killed, towards the bedroom at the back.  

***

The door to the bedroom splintered open. Tommy entered the room and saw his sister cowering in the corner holding her knees. Gigi looked up at him with faded blue eyes through strands of dirty blonde hair.

“Tommy?” She said.

Gigi stood. Didn’t even bother trying to cover up. She was only wearing a pair of black lace-pattern panties. Her ivory skin was sticky with perspiration. Silver hoops were pierced through each of her pink nipples, which stood erect on top of her round, milk-white breasts.

“What are you doin’ here?” Gigi asked.

Tommy fixed his coked-out gaze on her.

“Put some clothes on. You’re comin’ home.”

“You’re crazy. I’m not goin’.”

This enraged Tommy.

“What? You sayin’ you’d rather be here getting’ pimped-out by a drug dealing piece-o-shit?”

“It was my choice to be here. I’m a grown woman. It’s none of your business.”

“None of my business? You’re my blood.”

Tommy grabbed his sister by the arm.

“You’re comin’ with me like it or not. Ain’t nothin’ but dead motherfuckers here now anyway. So get dres…”

Tommy’s eye exploded as a bullet entered it. Blood freckled Gigi’s shocked face. She watched her brother’s body smack to the floor of the bedroom. Her eyes glanced over at the closet.

A massive black hand, with tattooed knuckles, stuck out of the partially cracked open closet door. The hand gripped a snub nose .38 with a smoking barrel.

The door opened and out stepped a giant, naked black man. All muscles, tattoos, and keloid scars. His flesh was stovepipe black, and his hair was braided in crop circle patterns atop his head.

He clomped over to where Tommy laid and looked down over his lifeless body.

Gigi gazed at her brother’s corpse. Watched as blood pooled around his head.

“What have you done Marvin?” Gigi said.

“What does it look like you dumb white bitch? I shot his ass.”

Marvin shook his head at Gigi.

“We need to get dressed and get the fuck outta here. Hurry up and throw something on them titties.”

He walked back over to the closet and started grabbing clothes off hangers.

“You shouldn’t have killed him,” Gigi said from behind him.

Marvin smirked, and shook his head again, as he grabbed a belt and a pair of pants. She ain’t nothing but a dumb hillbilly farm girl, Marvin thought to himself. 

“Why’s that?” Marvin asked.

He froze when he heard the shotgun cock behind his back. Marvin turned his head only to have it blasted apart by the shotgun. His headless body hit the floor. Blood jets spewed from the neck cavity.

Gigi stood clutching the shotgun, topless, and drenched with blood.

“Because he was my kin.”

BIO: Ryan Jackson writes stories where people die at the end. Lots of people. When he's not killing people on the page he can be found at his blog: http://sinisterscrawlings.wordpress.com/, and his twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/RyanJackson.