Balls Capone

The Job - by P.N. Neville

There I was, sitting on a bench on the city streets sitting upright against the brick wall of a long abandoned building, it's crumbling bricks obscured by hundreds of old posters, fliers, and stickers for lost loved ones and events long gone by. Next to the bench sat a row of pay phones, like the ones that once used to be everywhere. I was waiting for a call. I'm doing side work for a shady organization that would call me on a payphone and let me know where to go. Drugs, guns, who knows really what is in those packages. I didn't really care though, I needed the money.

At the end of the row of payphones was a different looking phone, it's body was blue and it's keys had little pictures on them. The booth always smelled like old cigarettes and cheap cologne, covered in pictures of exotic destinations, fancy night clubs, entertainment venues, and advertisements for hotels. It was a reservation phone like you once saw in the airports 30 years ago. It was always one of these phones they would call me on, they were somehow able to get into that line and make it ring.

A sharp ring leapt out from the last booth in the row, I walked over and picked up the blue receiver. It was my contact guy, Scott. Scott was a sickening guy, he just had this evil gross way about him and I hated having to deal with him. He always made it harder than it had to be, but this was part of getting paid so I just did what I had to do. Scott told me his current location and that I was to bring him the money and pick up the "product", which I'm pretty sure was a large amount of crystal meth. He told me there was a car around the corner waiting for me to use, they money was already in the trunk, I just had to drive the car.

What a pile, a real candidate for the crusher, you would think big organizations like the one I worked for could at least afford a decent car, but no, here we have a 1968 Pontiac Bonneville and not one of the finer specimens either. It was beat and painted a lovely shade of turd brown, but at least the ugly color disguised the large amounts of rust around the bottom of the doors and wheel wells. I pushed the drivers side door button and pulled the pitted chrome handle, but it would not open. It was obvious this door didn't work, so I had to enter the car from the passenger side. The passenger side door groaned as it's rusty hinges reluctantly rotated allowing me access to the vehicle. It stunk of cigars and ass inside, the carpet covered in stains, wadded up wrappers and cigarette butts littered the general floor area. The keys dangled from the ignition switch and to my suprise, she fired right up and it was off to meet Scott.

The house was located in a big subdivision called, Crystal Verde. It was one of those built in the late 70's or early 80's, those old split level style houses and they'd had plenty of time to be good and run down. I pulled up to the house I was told, smashing my side into the drivers side door and remembering like a dork that it doesn't function. I slid across the worn out bench seat, getting my pants caught in the open cracks, tearing them a little more and out the passenger door.

The house was one of the more run down ones, old tangled hoses ran across the sun baked brown lawn, cigarette butts littering the cracked up sidewalk, the door was missing some of its original decorative squares leaving behind an ugly brown stain where they used to be. The door cracked open and a skinny pale man poked his head out, it was Scott. I walked into the door and the house was just filled with stuff, stuff everywhere, like a hoarder house, so much that just standing in the foyer made you feel claustrophobic, the air was strangely damp and smelled musty, there was a heavy presence here, it was a very uncomfortable house to be in.

"Where's my money?", growled Scott, "I've got shit to do, so let's get this done."

"It's in the trunk of that car out in front", I explained as Scott peered out the dirty blinds.

Then I heard voices, the voices of kids. I looked around the corner and down the hallway and there was a bunch of kids in raggy clothing. He was always in there with a bunch of kids, whacking them out on meth and doing God knows what, but I could guess.

Scott saw me looking at the kids and said, "Don't mind them, they're damned anyway", and walked out to the car to pick up the cash.

Scott was a creepy little skinny guy with a pervert stash, kind of your classic pedophile look I hated his guts, so it wasn't really too hard on me when I had to kill him.

It seemed my contact on the other side of the deal had purposely shorted me on cash to try and take me out of the picture. They knew Scott would figure I was trying to screw him over and he'd take me out. Scott came back in the door, peered at me over his glasses and walked out of the room. There were all these kids walking around like zombies, all skinny, dirty, and malnutritioned. One little girl sitting in the corner rocking back and forth over and over again. There was another sitting on the stairs that was crying what I'm pretty sure was blood. It was so damn heavy here, it felt like giant bags strapped to my shoulders pulling me towards the floor and taking so much of my energy just to able to stand in one place.

Then suddenly here comes Scott, out of the hallway, in a furious rage and he now has a big hunting knife in his hand.

"You will pay for your sins!", he screamed at me as he lunged with the knife.

But in one quick ninja like move, I grabbed his arm and swung the knife around and right into his eye. There was a satisfying crunching feeling as the blade sunk deep into his skull.

"Take THAT, Scott!", "You freaky ass bastard!" I yelled at him as he fell to the ground dead. Yeah, he got what he deserved. What a scum bag.

But his body turned red and quickly melted into the floor, leaving only a black shadow on the ground that actually got up and just walked away. Horrified, I ran to the car and got the hell out of there.

Later that night, I was sleeping in my bed and I was awoken by a deep grumbling voice that said, "Don't move".

I opened my eyes and two large horse like legs with hooves came out of my wall and held me down.

The voice spoke again, "You botched the deal, Pat", "and you killed Scott, now he has something he wants to say to you...."

Then a red fiery hole opened up in the wall right above my head and Scott's bloody skeleton head came out and starting speaking in hideous high pitched tone.

"You need to go back to Crystal Verde, Pat", "take them, they are yours!", "Don't you want what's yours?" "Don't you want what's coming to you?"

"You're going to die, Pat!", as the voice began screaming at an ear splitting volume, "YOU'RE GOING DIE AND BE JUST LIKE ME IN HELL!", "YOU BELONG IN HELL, PAT!"

"YOU KNOW IT'S WHERE YOU COME FROM", "YOU BELONG IN HELL!" "COME WITH ME TO HELL!" "WE BELONG TOGETHER IN HELL!" "COME WITH ME TO HELL!" "COME WITH ME TO HELLLLLLLLL!"

I was struggling with all my might to get away from the hooves that held me down, but there was nothing I could do. The voice was so loud now, my head felt like it might explode from the pressure. The stinging red blood dripped from the skeletal face and into my eyes, up my nose and into my mouth, burning like battery acid, the intense pain, the words echoing through my mind building ever in intensity, the boundaries of my sanity were being breeched. Then sudden darkness, a peaceful empty darkness. It was all over, had I passed on? Was I going with Scott to some kind of tortuous hell?

Now, I'm not a religious person at all, but that still scared the shit out of me.

I woke up in my room, for real this time and was tremendously thankful there was no hooves holding me down or bloody skeleton Scott.