The Flesh of Fallen Angels

The beginning of a story i started writing

The Flesh of Fallen Angels

 

The final gunshot was an exclamation mark of the travesty some say I had committed. I looked down at the thick, wet earth below and inhaled, feeling the full consequence of my actions fill my lungs and there in my blood splattered hand, I glimpsed the deep black curling smoke from a pistol, frozen in my tight shaking grip as if frozen in time.

 

They were all dead. Everyone I loved had perished like swatted flies and the past was a blazing blur; images had merged together and become a distant memory. Undoing the past was not an option, but wreaking chaos and revenge had seemed the only logical choice to make. Once the bloodshed broke out into a sweet melody of twisted kills, I couldn’t lie back and forgive myself later for not trying to win something back, for those I had acquired a passion for within my short, young lifetime.

 

The evening mist was beginning to roll down from the looming hills, as I wrenched the gun from my right hand and backed away from the darkened, and now misshapen face of the mysterious character lying cold and white on the floor, that I had presumably killed for the same reason as the last ten souls. I felt no sympathy or need to mourn, for I had left the body for the crows to finish. I was sure they would enjoy tearing the raw red meat from the bone marrow of another creature as much as I relished in killing it. I lied to myself that it was over. I was still alive; my loved ones were still dead. It wasn’t over.

 

My name is of no importance; the few to have known it are no longer alive. I am the one who you should fear when sleeping so sweetly in the comfort, warmth and security of your homes. I am a bounty hunter, trained and fired from the New York Police Department, now working for myself; my mind guides me on a perilous journey to retrieve the deaths of those who killed my family. I stop at nothing, never making mistakes - learning from those that haunt my past - never turning a blind eye to the mob and never forgetting my endless pain. My pistol is my best friend; it becomes my eyes and impairs my vision but pushes the strength of my anger away from my fists of fury. In a way, it keeps the demon inside me unleashing itself upon a great number of helpless people. My life has become much like a broken mirror, my job being to put it back together again like a jigsaw, except the pieces are so small it seems like an endless task of necessary insignificant killings to get the truth.

 

I was running now, far from the sirens that were faint in the distance. I was used to hearing the screams and shouts upon the discovery of the body, used to the newspapers and police mysteriously finding nothing to help them hunt me, find me, imprison me and confine me. I am always killing under and unknown name, only taking my tight leather glove off to feel the divine touch of my hand clenching my pistol and finding great amounts of pleasure in clicking the new bullet rounds into place. I have no home; I live for information, searching from place to place - houses to bars and even run down backstreet nightclubs, infested with teenage w****s trying to make a living - attempting to pick up the pieces the mobsters left carelessly behind for me to delve into and make my life’s work from.

 

Their faces didn’t matter anymore. Portraits of adults that were to die dotted the cheaply papered motel wall like splats of blood. They were all stains on this pathetic society to me, deserving nothing better than a short drop and a sudden stop. I teetered backwards on the hard, wooden chair looking up at the grimy water that steadily dripped through holes in the roof.

 

I rummaged through the medicine cabinet in the yellowed bathroom, as the already broken mirror fell out from the front and shrieked as it smashed into several tiny pieces at the sight of my bruised and battered face. Pain killers were the only thing to ease the frantic fighting that the bounty rained upon me. Throwing two white pills down my throat, I headed for the legless and mouldy sofa, knowing that it would provide me with a better chance at slumber than that of the stained and bounce-less bed, which had lost its spring in order to provide someone’s shameful but intimate pleasures the night before.

 

I feel dead inside, not even the bullet previously lodged in the shoulder inflicted me with pain. My feelings were non existent but my intentions were clear; I want to find the killer of my innocent wife and precious new born baby girl that got stuck in between two sides of a struggle. I want to tear the head from their neck and pick them to pieces, poking around for every scrap of dignity they had left and pull it away, kicking and screaming. I need to feel alive once again, but at this stage I do not know what it will take.

 

My nightmares always take me to another world of endless maze-like corridors and the loud piercing screeches of my beautiful, weeping wife, holding my girl as she silently sleeps in her comforting grip, unaware of the terribly horrific slaughter yet to come. Sometimes in my dreams I wake in a cold sweat of perspiration and tears. In the worst scenarios I awake believing I am the killer, a murderer, and I hold my loyal loaded pistol to my thick and empty skull, shaking with my finger ready on the trigger to blow my brains out. You’d have to be a first-degree fool to let your wife and new born die without knowing how deep you need to venture to find the truth. Love hurts…

Reviews

[Legion]

Yes, it indeed hurts. The title pulled me in and the story had me feeling the pain and passion of the hunter. Great work here. Hope to see more in the future. Think this could be an interesting series.

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I loved your story. You have a real talent! The last paragraph I thought really pulled the story together. It was vivid and full of description. I liked how your character had no name. The idea was original. Really loved it!