Smile

The following is a guest post by author Amidu Njiemoun. If you enjoy this piece, you can find more of his work on his website (amiduomar.com), or on Facebook, or on Instagram and twitter (@amiduomar).

 

“No,” he says.

“Please, please…” he says.

Although it sounds more like ‘blease, blease’ with the tears and all. Sobbing and that. Pathetic.

He wipes the snot and blood from his pointy, freckled and bruised nose. “Blease don’t…”

“Is that what she said?”

“I dun’ ‘no… I dun—” his voice breaks and he starts sobbing again.

I’ve been here for maybe two, three minutes, and he’s been crying like this on and off since. Funny what a gun, a simple wool mask and a punch or two to the face can do.

“I dun’ ‘no, ‘blease don’t…”

No fighting back, no nothing. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Boom. Chipped a tooth too. Bruised my hand a little though. Bastard.

It’s the surprise factor that gets them. An armed, masked guy… Some don’t even know what I’m here for until I tell them. Some know right away, you can see it in their eyes. And the amount of bribery… insults, name-calling, pants-shitting… the usual.

“Blease, sir…”

“Sir?” I chuckle and he mistakes it for sympathy – mistakes it for a crack in my armor. He thinks he’s getting through and his voice clears a fraction. Hope… cute.

“Sir, mah dad, he… Mah dad… he, he…”

“Your dad, he…?”

He’s still backpedaling through the rather luxurious one bedroom apartment, slightly tripping at every other step. Since I’ve been here, we went from crawling – after I rocked him with the first punch – to a half-assed escape attempts out the door – which only lead to more punches to the face – to backpedaling down the hallway, into the living room, out onto the balcony, and now, finally, up against the railing.

He stumbles a little as he reaches the railing and dips over slightly, his back arching, his arms and hair flailing in the wind. Like in a movie. If this were Hollywood, I’d grab him by his tie and make him tell me were my daughter is.

It isn’t though. I’m not Liam Neeson. My daughter is long dead and this guy’s not wearing a tie.

Besides, he has nothing of interest to tell me and I couldn’t care less if he ends up a bag of flesh, blood and bones on the pavement or a paralyzed cripple that somehow survived a 10 story fall. I don’t have a rating to care about. They can ban this film for all I care. Doesn’t matter. Though I do appreciate the satisfaction of an active kill over him falling.

“Mah dad he…”

Oh, right. His dad.

“He, he, he has, he… loddsa money, he ‘gan…” he sobs.

This is some of the most pathetic and worst bribery I’ve ever had to listen to.

Although… there was this one guy, Persian, who told me that, if I let him go, I could have as many virgins as I want. 12, 13, 14… or younger… that guy didn’t quite get the memo. It was my first calculated torture. The first time Allen questioned our cause. You cut out a tongue, chop off a finger or a hand and all of a sudden people start questioning your sanity.

“Sir?”

He brings me back into the moment. Was he saying something? I wasn’t listening but the look on his face suggests that he’s expecting an answer. That stupid face. I hate freckles on men. Especially preppy teens like him.

Fuck this.

I cock the gun to his womanly scream.

“No! Blease!”

I smack him across his freckles and toss him back into the living room where he clumsily trips up and crashes into his massive TV set. Good thing his dad has ‘loodsa money’. I shut the balcony doors. Better not to do this outside anyway, even when it’s dark and even when I do enjoy a good clean shot and bloodspray in the nightly summer breeze.

The boy flops on the wooden floor like a fish out of water, sobbing and lamenting his wounds, while trying to crawl to safety. Because everybody knows that crawling to safety is the quickest way to escape.

I cut him off and put my boot to his face with some emphasis. I think I chip another tooth and then some. Can’t really tell – steel toes.

He whimpers – of course he does – and retreats to another corner of the living room, wrapping his arms around his knees and balling up like the wuss he is.

Pathetic.

I shuffle in my coat pocket for the Polaroid and toss it on the ground next to him. His face distorts somewhat as he looks at 13 year old Tatyana.

Raped. Drowned. Thrown away.

His increasing whimpers make him seem every bit the 18 year old bitch that he is. It’s this part that I hate most because it only makes me think of the way their victims must’ve begged… and the way… ah fuck it. I take quick aim, pull the trigger and leave a small but lethal hole, square in the middle of his head.

This moment is never as suspenseful or ground-breaking as it might seem. Taking a life is easy and the world simply goes on with just one difference… silence. It is golden.

I unscrew the matte black silencer and tuck it away. The blood pools at my boots and I step aside just before it reaches them.

Slumped back against the wall, the boy still has his arms wrapped around his legs, with the final scream of terror stuck in his throat and his eyes wide open in shock.

I look down at the picture of Tatyana.

Raped. Drowned. Thrown away.

I hate to think of the terror she must have felt, but the fact that, hopefully, this asshole felt it just a little gives me pleasure. It satisfies me and, at the same time, spurs that feeling, that boiling deep inside. Like I first had that day way back then. That urge that started all of this.

I smile.

Had this been my first kill, I would probably be emptying my clip into his dead body now. I was emotional then. Green. Over the top and excessive even… some might say.

I pull off my mask and notice blood on it. The shot must’ve sprayed. Weird. I crumple it up and pocket it, then move closer to the corpse. I kneel down next to him, careful not to get any more blood on me, and pull out my pen: Two big fat lines to extend his lips to a perfect smile. Just then I can feel it again. That tingle. That satisfaction.

I take a step back to do the final duty. Polaroid cam. Instant print. I’m old school like that. Plus it’s not like I can get the pictures developed anyway. A quick snapshot for the collection before I leave.

On to the next one.