by Michael Kingswood
The lighting in the overhead seemed to swirl, making little multicolored kaleidoscope patterns in the air over Grant’s head. Twist and swirl, swirl and twist.
He felt like his entire body was swirling along with the lights, like he was moving in time with them, and more. Like he was about to float up, way up there to be with them, in the warmth of their glow.
Only the top of his head was holding him down on the ground.
Only the top.
He threw up his hands, grasping toward the spiraling lights above him. Maybe if he could reach high enough, he could overcome that resistance and he could go where he was meant to.
Up.
Up, up and away.
There was sound all around him, murmurs and rumblings, something that seemed almost like speech, or maybe a musical note here and there. But nothing that he could put his finger on.
Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, really.
But damn, he couldn’t get past that resistance.
Slumping back down, he felt his arms fall to his sides, but that only registered faintly beneath the frustration bordering on anger that swept through him.
He needed to go up. HAD to go up.
But his Damn. Head. Wouldn’t. LET. HIM!
There was a wall somewhere; he vaguely remembered that. Like the memory of a dream from when he was two years old. He knew the fact of the wall, but he couldn’t grasp the reality.
But there was one nearby. Somewhere.
Maybe…
He stumbled forward, only remembering he even had feet in the split second it took between when he started to fall and when he reflexively adjusted his stance to keep himself upright.
The stutter-step drew his gaze down from the mesmerizing spirals, and he became aware of shapes in the world around him. Blobs, not amorphous so much as blurred out, washed beneath the sheen from above. But he could just tell the blobs were multi-colored.
And they moved.
Off to the left—or was it right—they moved in unison, like an external force was directing them. And for a second, he almost could feel that force; rhythmic, pulsing. But then it faded back into the general murmur all around.
To the right—left?—their movement was more random; some remained still.
Part of Grant’s mind screamed at him that he should be wary, lest the blobs get him. Another, louder part chided that as paranoia. They were here to have a good time, just like Grant was.
No enemies in a good time.
He inhaled through his nose, and found that the odors around him weren’t washed out by the glorious spiral above. Not at all. A musky, almost sweet, scent overtop moist sourness that triggered another of those almost-memories, and he flashed to a locker room, way back in High School.
Just as quickly as it came, the flash went, and Grant was looking back up at the spirals again.
He gaped at their beauty, and he longed for them.
It was warm enough here, but there would be even warmer, the bliss even more sublime.
He tried jumping, and for a second he thought he’d done it.
Then his feet struck the unyielding surface beneath him, and that frustration flared up even higher.
Damn this stupid head, keeping him down!
He pushed forward, driving his heels into the floor, and two of the blobs directly ahead parted so he could pass. He heard the general murmuring grow more distinct, chagrined.
Then he was past, and he moved on until his outstretched hand contacted something hard.
Hard, and angled. Like a wall.
A wall rounding a corner.
He knew it was there. And here was his answer.
He couldn’t get up with his head holding him back.
So he stepped back, lowered his head, and charged forward.
The flash of light and searing pain when the top of his head struck the corner was hot, almost scalding. For a second, the world and the lights and the blobs all congealed and slowed, then stopped, and he caught a glimpse of a nightclub, with multicolored spotlights shining down from the ceiling. People in party attire scattered all around, those off to the right dancing to the DJ’s beat.
And shrieks of shock from people nearby to him, as they all looked at him with mouths agape.
Then the flash flew away and it was all murmuring and blobs again.
And Grant was light below the pain in his crown.
But not light enough. Still the top of his head held him down, down away from where he needed to go.
Up, and up. Up, and up.
He stepped back and charged the corner again.
And again.
And again.
At some point, he stopped feeling the pain.
And then he stopped feeling anything at all.
#
The club was awash in pandemonium. Panicked party-goers, all decked out in club attire and most at least a couple sheets to the wind from booze, drugs, or both, were pushing back from the countertop below which Piotr’s target now lay limply in a slowly expanding pool of blood and grey matter.
He had been in the prime of life, and was dressed to the nines, enjoying what he didn’t know was to be his last night in this world.
Considering what he had done, it was fitting that Grant now was cast aside like so many rags. In disgrace and filth.
Alone among the people in the vicinity of the place where Grant had shattered his own skull and poured his grey matter out onto the floor, Piotr did not flee. He just stood in his navy blue suit and unbuttoned white collared shirt, arms crossed over his chest, with his back against the red-painted wall of the nightclub, and watched.
Watched, and felt neither pity nor revulsion nor remorse. Just satisfaction.
And excitement for the future.
The compound had worked better than he ever could have imagined. Just one drop into Grant’s glass, during a carefully choreographed pass by the waiter who was bringing it to Grant’s table.
One drop had set him off enough to do…that.
Impressive.
Piotr hadn’t believed the scientist’s claim. How it had driven a test subject to blow the top of his own head off with a .45. He assumed it was just braggadocio.
Apparently not.
Amazing.
The DJ’s music turned off, the news of the event having finally reached him. Gone was the pounding bass and the electronic semi-melody, and now the only sounds were women’s shrieks and men’s expressions of shock as the crowd continued to back away.
Then, in the distance, sirens.
Paramedics. And Police, for certain.
They would have no reason to suspect Piotr. No way to connect him to Grant at all. And they wouldn’t be able to detect the compound in Grant’s bloodstream, let alone identify it. Piotr still carried the compound on his person in a small vial in the inner pocket of his suit coat, but it would appear just as a vial of cologne; even had a nice manly musk to it if sniffed.
Fortunately it had no effect unless swallowed; for whatever reason the scent receptors in a person’s nose couldn’t carry it.
That was another of the scientist’s claims that Piotr hadn’t bought. Until the scientist demonstrated by sniffing it himself.
Crazy egghead.
It all added up to there being no reason the authorities would detain him, or pay him any mind at all.
All the same, there was nothing to be gained by waiting for them to arrive.
So he pushed himself off the wall and turned to his left, toward the hallway that housed the bathrooms at the rear of the club and, in the same hallway, the rear stairwell down to the ground floor, and then the exit.
For whatever reason, the herd of people had all pressed toward the front exit, so Piotr had an easy time of it, and he stepped outside into the rear parking lot just as he heard the squeal of brakes as the authorities pulled to a halt around the front of the brick-faced former warehouse that now was downtown Toledo’s most exclusive…and soon to be most infamous…nightclub.
Piotr sniffed, smiling ever so slightly as he slipped his sunglasses on despite the night’s dark and zigzagged his way through the lot, three quarters full of parked cars that cost more than most people earned in two years of work.
The kinds of people who bought cars like that had no idea the storm about to swoop down upon them.
Yes, this had been a very successful night, indeed. It had taken a serial rapist—uncharged, but guilty nonetheless—off the grid and sent him straight to hell.
And it had provided a test run and proof of concept for the opening salvos in the war to come.
A war of liberation, one far too long in coming.
Oh, there was a storm coming indeed.
As he stepped out of the lot and turned left, walking down the sidewalk along a four-lane street that was still busy despite the late hour, he pulled a flip phone out of his coat pocket.
It was a burner, purchased by a guy he’d met outside the convenience store that sold them in exchange for a twenty. Untraceable, to Piotr or to anyone he knew.
Except for one person. But there was no danger in talking with her; she had no ties that mattered. He had made certain to keep her far away from his plans, and his compatriots.
What was not known could not cause her harm. Nor could she betray it, even unintentionally.
He hit Susan’s number and pressed DIAL. A moment later, her voice came on the line.
“Da?”
“It is done,” Piotr said, simply and without inflection.
She would know it was him; know his voice. He would not have tried to conceal his identity from her even if he didn’t have such joyous news to bring to her.
Her breath caught, and he could envision her mouth opening slightly from surprise. She knew his intent; knew he would not rest until the man who had violated his sister paid for what he had done. But she could not have brought herself to believe he actually would—could—do it.
She always had refused to see that her little brother was not a little boy anymore.
“You are certain?”
“Certain.”
Her voice broke then, and he heard a sob, quickly pulled back. In his mind’s eye, she was blinking away tears, wiping her cheeks with the back of her free hand as she struggled to keep her composure, even there in the privacy of her bedroom.
“I don’t – “ She stopped talking, clearly unsure what to say.
“Say nothing. I will talk with you again in a few days. I love you, Susachka.”
Then Piotr hung up and closed the phone.
He thought for a moment, then tossed the phone into a nearby trash can. Probably excessively cautious, but was there really any such thing? Burners were easy to obtain, and cheap. And he decided he could not take even the slightest risk Susan could get dragged into this thing he was beginning.
He continued down the street, picking up his pace as he went, to where he had parked his car—used and economical, unlike the monstrosities in the parking lot he had just exited—half a mile from the club.
The heels of his mirror-polished shoes made soft, rhythmic clopping noises, like the ticking of a clock. His smile, unbidden, grew until he felt the skin of his cheeks stretch.
It all had gone according to plan, without even the slightest difficulty.
He was ready. It was time to start preparations in earnest. And then…then comes the storm.
Soon, now.
Soon.
* * *
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A collection of Michael Kingswood’s published stories are available here: