Chapter Twenty-Six: Dudley Death Right

BTW when you are done reading this chapter. If you think thinking is fun; if you think philosophy should be for everyone try reading TheMapThinker.com

It is so nice when people are predictable. Especially victims. There he was, right where he could be expected to be, doing what he could be expected to be doing. Murder is a serious business but it was impossible to keep from smiling at how predictable people cooperate in their own demise.

He was unaware someone might be sitting behind a bush: Sitting and watching him as he sat in the huge brown easy chair, drinking a piss yellow beer while watching a video. The television was not where it could be seen, although it was easy to see him slip the DVD into a slot next to it. What he was watching wouldn’t matter. Probably something predictable. The weakness of predictable people is they expect the rest of the world to be just as predictable as they are. He was unaware of the possibility his world might suddenly change – End in his case.  If he had he might have pulled the blinds and given less of an advantage to the unpredictable – The unexpected. Someone sitting behind a bush waiting to kill him.

I was getting used to sitting, hiding, behind bushes. Interesting. When you start killing people you somehow become a friend of nature. As though nature and humanity were inexplicably opposed to each other and when you hunted people nature sided with you because your enemy was also their enemy.

Planing and planing for this minute. Practice and practice. Killing little things, killing bigger things. The bugs, worms, a snake, cats, dogs, even a horse. The street-walker. Leading up to the ultimate moment. Working up to killing – Him.

Worrying and worrying – What if something went wrong? What if at the wrong moment, at the very second when the finger pulled the trigger, the hand were to shake? What if the shot missed?

Ready or not here comes your killer: And remember you brought it on yourself.

The door was unlocked. How easy can it get?

He turned, looked up at me, a confused expression on his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“I come to make an offer. A pointless offer, a wasted gesture, but I am going to make it any way.”

“Offer?” That got his interest.

“Yeah. An offer. Don’t bother me, don’t bother anybody in my family. Back off and stay away.” The fire in the fireplace punctuated the sentence by making a popping sound. The possibility quickly flittered: What if the house burned down? Might be possible to make his murder look like an accident. But that took its own expertise. Too easy to mess up, do it wrong. Besides a fire would be noticed quicker, possibly before a good getaway could be made.

Forget the fire idea. The longer before his body was found the better.

He paused as though he was actually considering what he had been told. “That is an offer? Sounds more like a threat to me. And you have nothing to back it up.”

“It is an offer. I’m not going to let you ruin my life. Not going to let you mess with my family.”

“Your life? Your family?” He was angry and his voice was rising. “You realize who brought this whole thing on don’t you?” He waited as though he expected an answer. When none came he went on. “Well I’ll tell you who. All I needed was a simple little favor. Not like I have never done any favors for you or your family, now is it?”

“Sometimes favors can’t be granted. You are not the only one. Now, are you going to back off or not?”

Him laughing was unexpected. The first surprise.

“And if I don’t?”

“When you find that out it will be too. Late.”

“Get out,” he said.

He didn’t realize how much easier those two little words made killing him. This was going to be simple. The revolver came out smoothly and, almost without volition the barrel pointed itself between his eyes. Most people today use semiautomatics, but they have a serious drawback; they spit casings everywhere and sometimes the shooter leaves one behind. That one could have a fingerprint, or something else on it that would identify the shooter. An intelligent killer nowadays would always give serious consideration to using a revolver. I prided myself on doing my homework.

Looking down the barrel to the spot above his nose where the bullet would go made all the preparations for something going wrong seem so damn silly as the trigger gave a small resistance and the gun fired with a thwacking noise.

It was quick. A flinch of his shoulders, a small blur as he moved. There was a snap. It was black. Then it wasn’t black. It was eggshell. Soft.

A hand tufted rug.

My face was on it.

And he was standing up there.

The bastard had simply leaped forward and thrown his fist. That quick. Now he had the gun, standing over his killer. That really pissed me off. In all the plans for what might go wrong this had not been included.

There was a click.

Even turning to look up caused pain. But that was forgotten quickly. The fool, after having gained the upper hand was not going to kill his opponent. He wasn’t even going to keep the advantage he had.

He was emptying out the bullets, letting them drop, one by one onto the floor.

That was worth a smile.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?”

He had misinterpreted the expression. “What did you think I was going to do just stand there and let you shoot my brains out and not even try to defend myself?”

An answer wasn’t wanted or required, But it had looked that way – Until the revolver went off.

It was time to shift position. It was time to moan to. That was the easy part. Maybe the jawbone was broken. Certainly felt like it.

He put the unloaded revolver on the table.

Then he strolled over and leaned down. The great white hunter examining his latest specimen, deciding where to hang it on the wall. Then he started talking low and quiet. He explained in great detail, “This is what I am going to do to you, right here, right now.” And when he was done with that he explained, “And as for the rest of your family.” He went into a lot of detail about that too. He was planing on having a great time.

When he stood up it was time to roll over and reveal what had been concealed. Time to find out if this worked as advertised. Ironically enough, it came out of one of his own hunting catalogues. It was supposed to stop a grizzly bear attack at twenty-five feet away.

The pepper spray went straight up to his face, directly into his nose.

He yelled, he flailed, he stumbled.

Well, that seemed to work. Good. Now to get up and get at least one bullet in the gun to kill him with.

All of a sudden all that planing, “What if, what if, what if?” Worrying if this could go wrong, worrying if that could go wrong – Now it didn’t seem wasted.

Getting up wasn’t going to be that hard either.

Then, even through the pain, he must have realized his position, the danger he was in. With a huge scream he rushed and landed a solid kick between my stomach and my rib cage.

The pepper spray went flying through the air. It landed against the wall with a nasty click.

Black again.

Pain again.

He was coming again.

But pepper spray wasn’t the only back up that had been considered.

There was one more.

As he launched himself on me with grappling fury The small hand taser came out. He landed directly on it. He didn’t scream this time. He shook. Kind of like a rag doll being shaken by a puppy.

The revolver would have been easy to get. It was in plain sight with the bullets sitting next to it.

But then the memory came back.

He said:

“This is what I’m going to do to you.”

Then he said:

“This is what I’m going to do to your family.”

To hell with the revolver. When he began to recover the taser went right into his groin.

This was going to be some real fun.

But not for him.