Crime Short Story I'd be Interested in Your Opinions on

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‘Jack. SHUT THE F UCK UP!’

‘Shoot that f uckin’ bastard!’.

Thom’s throat burned at his last yell. His ear rang with the hail of bullets and dirt burst into his eyes.

No, it definitely was not going swimmingly.

It had gone to **** at the start. David, the f uckin’ plank, started drippin’ sweat on the buss. His irises began to swell in his sockets and the f uckin’ fool had started sniffin’ like a f uckin’ elephant with a f uckin’ beehive up its f uckin nostril. For f uck sake.

They got out the bus separately. They went to the meeting stop separately. And Thom almost tore that man to bits. He screamed in his face and told him off for taking drugs on the job. And guess what that dopey bastard said to him. Just f uckin’ guess?

‘Well, it’s not your body. So mind your own’.

Not my f uckin’ body. Not my body! Oh Jesus, if Jack hadn’t gotten in between them, then God knows what would have happened. He had to stay between them as they hiked to the ambush spot and that snidey fecker kept throwing him the eye. Oh jesus, he and him were gonna have a chat after this. Not my f uckin’ body. He’s f uckin’ risking everybody’s.

They had got the spot. Evening sun had made the green leaves pulse and the grass burn. Even the brown of the dirt had stood out in sharp relief and the trunks of the trees were effervescent with light. They had stood atop a small hillock and eyed the curve of the road in front of them. See, the plan was for Dave, the f uckin’ prick, to stand in front of the road and wave his hands like the saviour himself had set soul in his body. Then, when the car had stopped, Jack and Thom would come rearing out and waving their guns and dragging them out of the car before they could say who was who.

But could that f uckin’ druggie handle his part of the job. Thom mentioned it and saw that flash of violence in Dave’s eyes. Yeah, you just throw a punch, I f uckin’ dare ya. Again, Jack came in between them. He told them, in more words that Thom would use, to stop acting like a bunch of cocks.
And, you know, they did. Jack and Thom had hid themselves on opposite side of the road and knob-gnosher had sat himself in the centre of the road like a f uckin’ turd.

So, there they were. Like an awkward threesome that didn’t know what to put where. The sun began to lower in the sky and the light left the world as if a switch had been thrown. He raised his hand an arm length from his face and could see the tips of his fingers wiggle, but that was about it.

Why the f uck hadn’t brought f uckin’ flashlight the f uckin’ edgits.

They had heard the radio first. Even in the dark Thom could tell that the others tensed as if some wannabe poet had put strings in the narrative with overused assonance. Two people were arguing over the radio and the radio was comprised of two people arguin’. Thankfully, Thom could hear the two lads in the car and couldn’t hear the gombeens on the radio.
‘Something isn’t right! WE should turn back right-‘

‘Look at nannie boy pissing his f uckin’ panties. It’s a bit of money who cares what’s in the trunk’.

‘Are you thick? Did ya see that look in the woman’s eyes? It almost tore me bollocks off!’

The headlights of the car lit along the road and moments later crashed upon that great Lummox in the middle of the road. For a moment the two men stopped their bitchin’ and the radio rang true and clear.

‘’Tis terrible Joe. The youth of today are in, ya know, revolt’.

Thom almost burst his hole tryin’ to hold back the laughter. Jesus Christ, what a choone to do a job on.

Thank f uck the lads in the car had started their racket. Thom didn’t know what he would’ve done if he’d heard old Joe’s voice.

‘Move your ass of the road!’

‘Just reve the car a bit. That’ll teach him’.

‘I’ll rev the car up your hole-‘

Jack was the first to move. He rose from beside the road and gave a great cry. Thom leapt to his feet and took a breath and gave an even larger roar. From his vantage point he could see the big red-haired f ucker in the car, and a little red haired f ucker too, turn at the sound.

He also saw the gun flash as one of them fired at Jack. The bullet thundered through his leg and sent him to the floor.

For a heartbeat both Thom and Dave stood frozen like a pair of feckin’ edjits. But when those barrels swung towards them, they both dived back into the darkness.

Bullets banged so close that his head rang and he had to roll atop the ground to dodge that hail of steel. He stumbled to his feet and then, realising the stupidity of that move, dove back to the floor as they fired at where his head would’ve been. Thom was down, David was gone, and Jack’s scream pierced his ears. That radio muttered beneath the bullets and each syllable was a slash to his damaged noggin’. He just couldn’t take that feckers screaming anymore and he had to tell him to shut the f uck. Then, Jack being Jack, he expected Thom to get up and save the day.

Each bullet caused Thom to flinch and he hadn’t the sight a hare had while it was up it’s hole. He had to see what those bastards were doin’ when takin’ a break from trying to kill them. Even though his whole body screamed warnings at him, he inched his body up the hill’s inclined. He peeped over the fluff of dirt that had hid him from the enemy’s eyes.

And, then, he saw the most stupid act he had ever seen in his life.

Maybe it was panic? Or fear of figures in the dark? Or maybe he hadn’t the sense his mother beat into him? But, regardless, the lad drivin’ the car decided to drive it straight.

Except, ya know, the only thing in front of him was a wall. And a f uckin’ hard one at that.

The headlights crashed and glass shattered. That radio dribbled into nothing and the only sound was Jack’s tears and the engines wheeze.

The only light was the little left in the black sky.

No light. Only sound. Jack.

Thom sprinted over and his fears were right. Jack was found within
seconds and he almost gave him a kick. Instead, he bended over him and covered his mouth with his hand.

‘Do ya want them to feckin’ kill ya? Stop screaming. Ya f uckin’ muppet’

Sometimes Jack would go right if you said left, but, thankfully, this time he kept shtum. For a moment Thom wanted to take Jack gun. Even though five bullets were enough for two people, he would’ve loved another gun. But then he’d leave Jack defenceless…

That moment of indecision cost him a decision as shouting came from the crashed car.

‘Why did you drive it into the wall!?’

‘You think I did this on purpose? Cop on will ya.’

‘Ah for feck sake you almost broke me neck…’, the memory of near injury must have brought back the realization of imminent injury, ‘Those lads might still be out there.’

Thom, during their talking time, decided to try and creep closer. Ya know, strength, guns, training, didn’t matter if you caught them with their pants down. He reckoned he could get the jump on one of them and hopefully that Lummox in the dark would give him a distraction to get the other.
Thankfully, their talk had covered the sound of his movements. But when they shut their yaps his feet had decided to trod on a particularly loud branch. It’s sound lingered in the air like a great big soggy fart. Thom paused. They paused. Hell, he reckoned Jack even paused.

‘Ya know, I reckon there are people out there. You get ‘em while I look for the flashlight’.

‘Right so. Try not to crash the f uckin’ car again’.

‘Ah will you piss off. And, ya know, make sure you don’t get shot’.

Things began to move fast. The car door slammed, but no footsteps trod on the pavement. Thom ran bent over. He had to get into quitter area. To his left a branch broke and he paused to listen to his hear hammer. Could that man have been so silent on the footpath and so loud in the field? He listened until he thought his ears would bleed and the sound of a sneaker on wet grass rewarded him for his efforts.

Softly, oh so softly, he crept closer. Ten steps away.

His shaking fingers made the bullet tingle. He forced it into the cartridge and bit his lip as he slowly closed the cartridge. When his teeth moved away blood dripped from the rip in his lip.

Five steps away.

Sweat coated his skin even though the air chilled him to the bone. Why, oh why, when he wanted silence, that his heart hammered and his chest drew great lungfuls of breath.

Four

Three

Two

On-

The whole world turned blue with a bang. His widened eyes caught Dave in front of him. The trees around him. And that red haired f ucker barely an inch to the left from where Thom stood. They both jumped. The smoke oozed out of the man’s gun and his finger inched closer to the trigger.
Thom’s fingers were faster as they pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into his neck.

That blue light sill lingered and turned the man’s blood as florescent as his hair as he fell into his pitch back shadow. As soon as the man hit its surface the light shut out and left them in darkness.

Thom paused. For one strange moment he wondered at the loud sound of a bullet. Jaysus, it never seemed this loud before. He wondered whether it was all the empty space of nature? Did it amplify the sound? God, this world is-

‘Thomas!’

Nobody called him Thomas. And who the f uck was that?

‘Thomas!? Did you get those bastards?! I told you not to get shot!’

Thom realized what was happening with the slow realisation of a boulder rolling down a hill. Wait, there’s another Thom that’s not me. Jaysus…
Light hit his eyes and they burned. He stumbled and tried to shields his eyes, but a voice roared at him to stop.

‘Hands above your f uckin’ head!’

He raised them and blinked at the flashlight. He had to hand it to them, these fella’s were fast and silent. The light haloed the big man’s frame and turned his body into a blazing light. But the gun stayed black, ‘Where’s my brother’.

God, Thom was really going to piss himself laughing one of these days.
Brothers? F uckin’ hell, it’s a riot.

‘Stop laughing’, the cock of the gun’s trigger rivalled the blast of the gun’s barrel, ‘Where my brother?’

Putting on a straight face Thom said, ‘An inch to the left of ya’.

The big man paused. By the look on his face he knew what he find, but he couldn’t stop from turning the light to the left of him. The white glow lit his brother’s splayed body within that pool of blood.

‘You-‘

God knows what would’ve happened then. Thom could barely move for laughing and Jack was out for the count. Thom reckoned he would’ve been f ucked if David hadn’t blundered on the scene.

Dave melted out of the shadows like an iceberg out of fog. Those hands covered the man’s entire head. Tendons pulsed beneath their pale surface and a crack ruptured the air. The man’s face stood at a tilt and he fell to the floor as if all his bones were broken.

Now, he is a jackass, but a man like that’s handy to have around.

‘I saw you showing your ass a few seconds ago? Get a wee bit afraid’, the laugh still lingered on Thom’s lips but the trembling began in his fingertips.

Dave looked him up and down, ‘You look more than a bit afraid.’

Thom tried to summon anger but it fizzled away before it could catch. He just shook his head and tried not too hunch over in exhaustion, ‘Let’s just end this.’

David picked up the flashlight and they went to Jack. Jack gave an almighty yell as they picked him off the floor and it fairly shook inside Thom’s achin’ head. The whole world seemed to wobble as he gave Jack a hand. A bitter taste began to flow into Thom’s mouth. His chest ached and called him to fall into a foetal position.

‘I reckon in it’s in the booth’, Dave said and glanced over at Thom, ‘You get the keys off one of ye’re men?’

‘Do I look like I got the f uckin’ keys’.

‘Well, I guess you’ve got your hands full. Maybe there in the ignition’.

‘Nobodies that…’, he just shook his head when David jingled the keys that he had found in the ignition, ‘Those f uckin’ edjiots’.

They shuffled over to the boot of the car. Jack groaned when he put his weight on his wounded leg, Dave sucked on his teeth when he slipped the key into the ignition, and Thom just wanted to lay down and sleep.
‘Come on Dave. Let’s get this over with.’

The god’s must have had a sick sense of humour. Thom thought that, if one Trunk was forbidden an automatic light, then this trunk should be it. The light hit it’s insides as it opened and exposed all the horror to the three robbers.

‘Oh jesus’, it was all to much. The murders, the bullets, the shocks, the blood, and now this. All the strength left his arms and Jack dropped to the floor.

The vomit rushed up Thom’s mouth and he almost didn’t hear Jack’s screams as he hurled his stomach out of his face.

A/N: Bit of a trigger warning here.

OoO

The trunk opened and the scent that flowed out sent David’s mind back through the years to another time.

The air had not yet filled napalm. The trees were free of the infestation of soldiers, corpses, and bullet holes. No, in this time, he was the only one with a gun.

Leaves so green that they had a verdant sheen crinkled at his touch. The sun burned through whatever gap in the branches it could so that David travelled through shade and light. A twig broke beneath his boot when he entered the clearing.

It alerted the family that lived there.

A man and a woman turned at his call. They would have come up to his chest and had attractive, childlike, bodies. He noticed they had brown eyes when he plugged them full of lead. The woman tried to run, but you can’t outrun a bullet in the back. The husband just took what he had to give then died with a sigh. The wife took a while longer.

Then he saw his saviour. Her blonder hair and blue eyes and small hands and soft expression. Oh, how his heart raced at the sight of her. As the light hit her as she lay beneath a baby blanket.

He dropped his gun and pulled down his pants.

Some people said Nam was ****e, but he reckoned it was alright.

His mind turned back to the present, but his vision superimposed with the past. That bay in a blanket could have passed for the eight year old between the locks of white powder. Why, good golly, his throat had dried with longing and his skin flushed in readiness. This child had black hair and brown eyes that had the whites bulging out.

‘We can’t be leaving her in there’, David’s big hand reached for the child.
Thom got there first. He lifted her up in his arms. Those blue eyes, beneath his dirty knacker hair, seemed close to tears…and even closer to murder.

‘A child..how can someone stuff a child in there.’

‘There all sort of people out there Thom’, David tried to put a grim tone upon his voice.

Thom’s glance bespoke violence. Why so antagonistic? He couldn’t…

‘Dave, be a dear and pick up Jack. I’ll carry this poor ****in’ child’.

David picked up Jack and ignored his weak groan. Could he know what sort of man I am? Old fear flashed through his guts. His mind summoned images of courts, castration and leering men within shower cells. Thom’s neck peeked out of his collar in front of David’s gaze. So soft, so skinny, so fragile…he could just…

The child stirred in Thom’s arms. She’d see a man die. David did not want to ruin that child. He wanted her pure and unsullied before he sent her to her resting place. And, after all, what proof was there that Thom knew?
He flung Jack into the back. No, he couldn’t know. David’s fear began to subside and it fell to nothing when Thom asked Jack if he was okay. David inwardly sneered at the knacker. No, a man like that will not be able to kill a man like me. Thom sat in the passenger seat and David sat in the driver’s.

‘So, Thommy boy. Got anywhere special you want to go’.

Thom threw him a look, ‘Just drive the ****in’ car’.

And so they drove to the city with the two babes dozing in the back seat.
The countryside flew by. Rocks reared in front of them and shadows watched from the corner of the light. David’s mind fairly swam at this stage. The ache after the murder and the ache for that child just proved too much. He had to…

‘What the **** are you doin’!’

Ara would the knacker just relax. Thom still ranted as David pulled out a pinch of snuff. He gulped it through his nose and it his head like a hammer. He could do anything, be anything…and hurt anything.

‘David pull this ****in’ car over’.

David gave him a lazy smile, ‘Try and take it off me’.

Thom, unsurprisingly, did not try and take the car off David.

They rolled into Galway city in a sea of red and blue. Sapphires ran along the walls and met streams of ruddy blood. Cars that swirled with dandelion flowers flew past in swirls of red and men in sunshine greatcoats walked the streets.

Jack cursed and David threw him a great toothy smile, ‘The baby’s awake’.
‘Jack’s right’, Thom’s eyes darted and his mouth worked, ‘We need to find someplace to hide’.

‘From what?’

‘From the guards! Are you thick in the head or somethin’?’

In that moment David came to the calm conclusion that Thom would be dead by the end of the night. But, he listened to what he had to say, so that he could get him when he wasn't lookin’.

Thom had stopped talkin’ and David flashed him a raised eyebrow to urge him on.

‘There’s a place where I can do what needs to be done…but what the **** Jack and I meant to do after that…’

As if on cue Jack groaned out, ‘And we didn’t even take the blow’.

‘I’m just happy we got that child’, Thom had spoken David’s thoughts, but they differed on the reasons why.

They parked the car as the hum within the city grew. The sirens took on urgency. A radio like rumble ran through the city.

Thom gave a hand to the child, but kept his eyes for the city. David, again, had to carry this bleedin’ fecker. He wondered how nobody had raised a shout about the three gentlemen staggering down the road. Although, even if the Guardia did come, they couldn’t come in time for the child.

Thom told David to turn right. Then go up some stairs behind a door. The room had two doors, one couch and black mould growing in the corners. One of the doors had the gleam of a kitchen and the other had that deepening darkness that led to a child’s bedroom.

‘Put him down on the couch. I’ll put lil’ miss to bed. Then, me and you need to have a bit of a chat.’

David couldn’t help but laugh, ‘Right so. We’ll do our business when the babies are in bed’.

Thom carried his prize into the bedroom and David put Jack on the bed. He could kill Jack now rather than later…but then that would give Thom a warnin’. He brushed an errant hair from Jack’s forehead and imagined those fingers squeezing the life out of him.

David stood up. Took out his gun. He’d kill Thom then take that child while the knacker bled on the carpet.

The light did not spread up to the bedroom door. Even when that lamp flickered it did not illuminate the child’s bedroom. David stood before the door. All but the wall behind the open door lay before him. A small shape lay inside the bed, and a tall figure stood sentinel at her side. He bit his lip and tried to keep in his groan of longing as he raised his gun.

But that flickering lamp gave a burst before it died. It lit the scene in front of him and brazened the wire hanger that held Thom’s coat above the bed. David’s silhouette was a darkness among the glow and he had only time to think wait...

The gun roared and a bullet broke through the door beside him. It’s hammer blow sent him stumbling back and a second later he felt the burning in his chest. Wait, he’s a knack…

The second bullet tore through his leg and sent him to the floor.

‘I could see that look in your eye. I could see it when you looked on that child. You sick-‘

Thom’s booth stomped into David’s leg and sent pain ripping through his mind. But it was nothing to his fear. After all his life of hiding the monster inside him, this man had found it out and would hurt him for it. The agony of Thom kicking him onto his back blinded all the reasoned thought in his head. Thom stood in between the kitchen and the bedroom door and both doors led into bottomless pits. Would they lead into David’s personal hell?

Thom pointed the gun straight at David’s head, ‘Say goodbye. You sick ****.’

In that frozen moment David noticed two things. First, the couch was empty and he could not see Jack anywhere.

The second thing was the figure with an unknown face stepping out of the kitchen door behind Thom. Its hand raised and the gun burned black in the darkness.

David smiled, ‘Goodbye, you sick ****.’

OoO

Jack knew when to get the **** out of room.

The tension grew between David and Thom until it made his teeth ache. David, the thick b astard, seemed the only person who didn’t notice.

He had eased to the floor. The shape of David could be seen moving towards the child’s bedroom and Jack, for some reason that he could not specify, felt a chill grow in his insides. He had to move fast before the bullets sprang. He bit down on his groan as he stood atop shaking feet and made his way to the door. Each step made his head swim. Each breath made his chest burn. And each time he stalled he imagined a bullet through the back of the head. Sure, he thought Thom would win, but there’s no harm in being safe.

A bang came from the kitchen window and a gun shot from the bedroom. **** this ****. Jack almost threw himself down those stairs and almost screamed as he reached the bottom. He flung himself outside that door. His knee crumpled beneath him and he fell to the darkness of an alleyway. Just a moment. He’d rest just a moment.

He looked up as someone ran past. He caught the scent of vanilla perfume and gun powder. A glimpse of her face showed black eyes and red lips. He didn’t know which was colder. The look in her eye, or the barrel of her gun.

Suffice to say, that sight gave him the resolve to continue on his way.
A red car shimmered through the yellow light. For a moment Jack thought it would slam into him, but, silly him, he slammed into it. The lock opened at his touch. He groaned into the seat and found the keys in his pocket. Wait, why did he have…

Ah, the ****in edjit. He’d been heading towards their own car and he didn’t even know it. The engine groaned it’s way to life. He pushed on the pedal. God, he wondered what that woman was up to. He didn’t know her from Adam, but he knew the look of a killer when he saw it.God, had she found Sasha?

At her name in his head the remembrance of his want, and his shame, and the shame of his want, swam through him. She had squeezed his balls until the pain turned to pleasure. She wanted him to pound her rough, but, jaysus lads, twas a little bit kinky for his tastes. But her teeth bit his lip until it bruised and her fingers -

A woman crossed across the street. For a moment they both paused. He saw the gun in her hand and the red of her lips and the apartment aflame behind her. She only had time to raise her gun before Jack floored the pedal to mow that bitch down.

Bones broke beneath the tires. Each bone breaking pierced his mind. Oh jesus, she can’t be…the body behind him moved as it pushed itself up on trembling arms. He moved the clutch and reversed it back into her. He got out of the car and they yellow lights swirled together as he stared at the bloody heap on the floor. At least it stopped moving.

Bile surged so far up his throat that it spewed out of his nose. He’d just killed a woman….Oh god, what could be worse. At that moment his eyes had alighted across a girl s standing in the darkness of the street. She had covered her eyes with her hand and he recognized the tattered clothes. Oh god, don’t tell me….had he just killed…

‘Honey, keep your eyes closed.’

The child stiffened and for the first time he heard her voice.

‘Where’s the lady that held the gun to me?

He blinked at her Romanian accent, ‘She, eh, had to scatter. But keep your eyes closed’.

He never questioned what he had to do. He held her hand when she held it out to him and walked her back to the car. The fire lit on blood and amplified the sounds of sirens. A child would slow him down, but Jack wouldn’t leave her to the animals that had taken her.

No, he’d…**** knows what he’d do. Thom and David were probably dead, and if they weren’t then he’d be steering clear of them, and whoever had set the fire would think he was dead too. He had no income, he had no plan, but people went away with worse prospects and survived.

One of his cousins had grown up in a place that still spoke Irish and probably hadn’t seen a black man before. He’d visited it as a child, been to the pub , and stole from the pub, and then got his fair share of bruises. They’d know him. They’d mark him as something more than a friend, but less than family. They’d protect him as one of their own, but they wouldn’t treat him like it.

He glanced at the child in the mirror. She slept the sleep of one who needed it.

Jack shook his head. If he’d been through what that child had been through he wouldn’t sleep for a week.

As they moved out of the road, the sirens turned the night to rose. In that crimson glow he saw a figure that put a smile on his face.

He pulled over, opened the passenger door and said, ‘Well, fancy meeting you here’.

Sasha sat in the car next to him and groaned as she pressed a pack of peas against her face, ‘****, Jack. I never wanted…why’s their a child in the back-seat?’

‘I know this place in the midlands where no one will come lookin’ and few will ask any questions. You fancy living there for a while?’

Sasha glanced at the child and her features softened, ‘Sure. That child looks like she might need someone to talk to’.

The drove into that sunset in the night sky.