Night of Vengeance (3 page)

Chapter 6

     Sheriff Briggs raced through town with lights and siren on. He hoped the call was just a prank. But as he turned onto Main Street and reached the court house it was obvious it wasn’t. He pulled up and climbed out of the car. Deputy Small was already on the scene, of course. Small was always Johnny-on-the-spot, which was fine by Briggs. Let the over achiever have his fun.

     “What in the hell is this?” Briggs asked.

     “It’s a dead body Sheriff,” Small answered. They were both looking at the large tree in the court house lawn that currently had a dead guy hanging from a rope.

     “Well no shit genius. I mean what’s it doing there? Is it suicide or what?” Brigg said.

     “That’s why we do an investigation. I was gonna call the Texas Rangers in a bit so they can get a crime scene team here,” Small said. There was already a crowd of bystanders gathering around.

     “You’ll do no such thing. Cut it down and get it out of here.”

     “What? It’s a death investigation. We can’t just cut it down. This is a crime scene.”

     “I’m the Goddamn sheriff, something you keep forgetting. Now this is Valentine’s Day, or night or whatever. People in this town are gonna be going out to dinner and heading to the VFW hall for the Valentine’s Day ball. They don’t need to see this dead fucking corpse hanging from a tree downtown! Now cut him the fuck down and get this body out of my site. And keep the Rangers out of this.”

     Small shook his head and turned away from Briggs.

     “Suit yourself, we’ll cut it down.” He and
the other deputies walked toward the body as a fireman went to get a ladder. As they were standing there, they heard the sound of an explosion. It was so loud Briggs jumped and the ground shook. Then there was another one. From down the road, there was a plume of smoke coming from the fire station, and another from the Sheriff’s department.

     “What the hell?” Brigg said as a caravan of large pickup trucks came rolling down the street. There were at least a dozen of them. In the back there were men all waving guns. They were hootin’ and
hollerin’ as if their team just won the Super Bowl. The trucks stopped as the men all jumped out of the back. Townspeople were looking on, some were laughing and taking pictures and videos with their cell phones as if this were some kind of parade. The laughing stopped when one of the men walked up to a woman with a cell phone and shot her in the face.

     From there people began running and screaming, but the men began shooting. Some were just tackling random people and beating them. Briggs drew his gun and ran over to one of the gunman.

     “I’m the Sheriff! You’re under arrest!” he said. What he didn’t see was the other gunman come up behind him and pistol whip the back of his head, knocking him to the ground but not out. He pointed his gun at Briggs but the other stopped him.

     “No, don’t. We’re supposed to leave the Sheriff,” the guy said.

     “Oh, right.” So they took Brigg’s gun and extra magazines, kicked him a few times each and ran off. Brigg’s sat up only to see all hell had broken loose. Across the street, the windows had been busted out of the Subway. Two men were dragging out a female employee, while another was cutting her clothes off. They held her onto the hood of a car and took turns raping and beating her.

     Another man was chasing a woman who tripped and fell right in front of Briggs. She looked at him and screamed. He recognized her right away. It was Donna Price, she worked at the post office.

     “Help me Sheriff! Please!” She reached out to him, but a man kicked her in the back of the head. She rolled onto her back and began kicking, landing a shot to his groin. The man grunted. Briggs saw he had a hammer in his hand. He grabbed her by the hair and smashed her in the face with the hammer repeatedly. After just three or four blows, her face was already unrecognizable. She had stopped fighting, but Briggs could tell she was still alive by the whimpering noises she was making.

     “Aw man, you fucked up her face
,” another man said who just walked up.

     “The bitch was kicking me. I had to do something.”

     “Well shit, I guess I can find another one, there’s plenty running around.”

     One of them looked at Briggs who was still sitting on the ground watching the whole thing.

     “Enjoying the show Sheriff? Keep watching. It’s just getting started!” The men high fived each other as they tore Donna’s clothes off and began raping her from behind. Briggs found himself staring at her bare tits and ass. Donna was in her fifties, but she was in great shape. He was almost getting aroused. For a minute he mistook her whimpers for moans as the men took turns with her. The dirty bitch was enjoying this!

     At one point, she got her fight back and began resisting them again, kicking, punching or whatever she could do.

     “This cunt has spirit, I’ll give her that,” one of the men said.

     “She sure does. We gotta save our energy though
,” the other one said as he took the hammer and bashed in her head until her brains were oozing through her caved in skull. It didn’t slow the two men down at all. One would fuck her until he was done, and then the other would take his turn.

     “You want a turn Sheriff? She’s still warm. Pussy’s nice and juicy too
,” one of them said. Briggs just looked on without saying anything. “Fine then, we’re almost done anyway.”

     Finally Briggs got to his feet and began walking to his car. There was another volley of explosions that rocked him so hard he fell over. As he looked around, he saw buildings were burning, cars were flipped over, and people were running and screaming as there was murder, rape and everything else happening right out in the open. He crawled to the squad car and climbed inside, backing away from the court house. There was nothing he could do here. Time to get out of town.

Chapter 7

     Melissa sat across from Chad not trying very hard to hide the huge grin on her face. They had already gotten their food. She was nibbling at her food watching him while he stuffed his face with brisket.

     “What?” he asked.

     “Nothing
,” she said, still smiling.

     “You keep staring at me.”

     “I just like looking at you. You’ve barely said anything since we got here.”

     “I’m trying to eat. Quit staring. It’s weird.”

     She looked away, stung at his words, but figured he’d just had a rough day at work. Suddenly she wasn’t feeling very hungry anyway, especially for barbecue. As she picked at her food, there was a loud noise outside. Then there were gunshots and glass shattering all around them as a large pickup truck tore into the parking lot.

     Melissa fell to the floor as shattered glass fell around her. She looked around but Chad was nowhere to be found. She was afraid he’d been hurt by whatever was going on. After a few more shots, the men from the truck were running through the restaurant screaming and laughing. One of the diners pulled out a gun and opened fire. He hit one of the men, but the others shot the diner several times killing him.

     Melissa crawled under the table and placed her hands over her ears. Some the men went walking through the restaurant, jumping on tables. Some of them went into the back and came out with a bunch of employees at gun point.

     “What
’s  going on here?” one guy shouted. It was Mr. Darvis, he owned almost all the apartment buildings in Peace. “Do you have any idea who I am? Who you are messing with here?” One burly guy with long hair and a beard pistol whipped him right across his mouth several times. Blood and teeth went flying as Mr. Darvis fell to the floor.

     “Now you shut the fuck up fat man. I don’t give a shit who you are. The important thing is you realize that I’m the one in charge.”  The burly guy looked at Mrs. Darvis sitting next to her husband. “This your wife? Hey guys, take this bitch in back. Actually grab all the girls, take them in back. We’ll take turns with them.”

     “What about the men?” another asked.

     “That’s a good question. Fuck it, don’t take ‘em in back. They can watch!”

     “Now you’re talkin,’” another man said as they all laughed.

     They went through and grabbed all the women, including young girls and elderly and dragged them to the counter. Melissa tried to hold perfectly still as they walked by her table. They had been seated in a corner booth, so she was fairly hidden. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chad crawling toward the exit door near them.

     “Hold on a second champ!” the burly guy yelled as he ran over, grabbing Chad by the shirt and pulling him up. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

     “I was, um, just gonna get some air
,” Chad muttered.

     “Right. Get the fuck over here asswipe. You’re lucky I don’t blow your fuckin’ head off right now.”

     “But I can maybe help you,” Chad said.

     “Help me. Help me how? How the fuck could your pretty boy ass help me?”

     “You guys are rounding up all the girls? Right? I’m here with a girl, Melissa. She’s under that corner table over there. It’s hard to see, because the way the seats are,” Chad said pointing in Melissa’s direction.

     What? Why would he do that? She had thought he loved her, that they had something special. And there he was, giving her up to these animals just to save his own skin.
She was suddenly startled by a man’s face bending down, looking right at her.

     “Well well, here we go. Come on out of there.” The man reached in, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her out. She glared at Chad who only looked away.

     “Well lookie there. Guess you weren’t lying boss. Some boyfriend you are though huh? Selling your girl out like that on Valentine’s Day. Oh well, she won’t be your girlfriend much longer anyway,” the burly man said.

     “So you’ll let me go?” Chad asked.

     “Let you go? Are you out of your fucking mind? Little bitch like you? You’re gonna stay for the show son. We got lots of goodies planned. You can’t bail on us now.”

     They dragged Melissa to the front, as another man looked her over. This one was short and skinny. He had a beard and shaved head, licking his lips as he looked her up and down.

     “This one’s a fine one,” he took a knife and cut her shirt open, and then cut her bra off exposing her breasts. “Damn, these is nice!” he said as he reached out squeezing them. She pulled away but he quickly held the knife to her throat.

     “Bitch, you resist me again and I’ll slice your fuckin’ tits off, you understand?”

     “Yes! I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded.

     “Oh, we gonna hurt you all right. We gonna hurt you real good.”

     From behind them, there was a scream as another of the men began tearing the clothes off one of the girls while bending her over the counter. The woman cried and screamed as the man started raping her from behind, with her facing the rest of the restaurant, her own humiliation on display.

     “That’s enough you motherfucker!”
a man yelled from the dining room. Some guy in a suit who had been seated ran straight at the pair, diving over the counter landing on her rapist. He knocked the assailant to the ground and got a few punches in, before another man overpowered him. Within seconds, several of the intruders were on him punching and kicking while the burly guy walked over. They grabbed him by his arms and pulled him to his feet.

     “Now, that was a really stupid thing to do. Here we have been nice to you all so far. And you come going off like some kind of lunatic”

     “Fuck you Grizzly Adams.”

     “Hahaha,
I like that. Grizzly Adams, good one. But we still have to make an example out of you. Can’t be giving other people ideas. Boys, I think our man’s face is a bit dry. I think he needs some oil.”

     The men walked him over to the deep fryer. The man struggled and kicked, but his captors were far stronger. They thrust his head face first into the hot oil. After a few seconds they pulled him out. He let out the worst sound Melissa had ever heard. It wasn’t a scream nor a howl, and it definitely wasn’t human. The rest of the hostages let out a collective gasp as they thrust
him face first back into the oil. This time they pulled him out and threw him to the ground.

     As soon as she saw his face, Melissa doubled over and threw up. The man was lying on the ground a few feet from her looking up. His face was red and mangled, with chunks of skin hanging off. His hair was burned off the sides and his nose and lips were reduced to charred chunks of wilted flesh hanging off his face. One of his eyes had melted down the side of his face, dripping off his cheek.

     “Anyone else wanna be a hero?” the burly guy asked to the group. The restaurant had become dead silent. “Well good! Now let’s get this party started!”

Chapter 8

     Randy was a few blocks from his house when the commotion started. First it was the sound of gunshots and screaming. From there he heard tires squealing, more screaming and laughter. A group of men in several pick up trucks had crashed into a police car. The men were dragging the deputy out of the car and beating him with his own baton as he struggled. More men were breaking into houses. A group of children ran past him screaming while a woman went flying from a home's second story window, landing on her head and lying motionless.

     Randy ducked under a porch as he watched the chaos unfold. What was going on? He'd never seen anything like this. Across the street he saw the men carrying a woman and what looked like a girl in her late teens out into the street. They ripped the clothing off the women as more men approached and began raping both women right in the street. He looked over at the police car and saw the officer lying on the ground with his head split open. Blood and brain matter spilled from the opening where his face used to be.

     Sneaking between the buildings, he made his way closer to downtown only to find things there were just as bad if not worse. He had no idea what was happening, but wanted to get out of town as soon as possible. Trouble was, there was no safe way out. These men were everywhere. Before he could finish that thought, he saw him. Skip, the man his wife had left him for was running for his car, a 1992 Chevy Corvette and fumbling for the keys. Randy's wife, Elaine had ditched him for Skip months before. Skip was in better shape and made more money than Randy by far. He sold real estate and despite the horrible housing market, Skip had managed to pull in well over six figures.

     He didn't look so tough at the moment. Randy wondered where Elaine and the kids were, but Skip was just across the street from him. Randy looked down the street and saw that most of the men causing the damage were preoccupied. The police had no control over the situation. Before he knew what had come over him, Randy was charging toward Skip at a dead run. Skip looked up just as Randy was on him and they both went tumbling to the driveway.

     "Randy! What the fuck are you doing?" Skip yelled as he tried to push Randy off him. Randy was shocked at Skip's lack of strength. He looked large and muscular, but Randy had no trouble holding him down.

     "I'm killing you, you fuck!" Randy yelled.

     "Dude! Get a grip!"

     "I got a perfect grip!" Randy yelled as he grabbed each of Skip's ears and began slamming his head onto the concrete. Skip tried to yell something else as Randy slammed his head into the ground over and over. Blood began to spray along the driveway and splattered onto Randy's face. He didn't stop though, he kept slamming long after Skip stopped moving. By the time Randy had finished, Skip's ears were the only part of his head that still looked human.

     Randy sat and admired his handiwork as he looked around. He had no idea what had come over him, other than the years of being stepped on, kicked around and treated as if he were invisible. On this night of chaos and lawlessness, Randy saw something for the first time in his life
- opportunity. He grabbed Skip's keys and climbed into the Corvette, starting it up. He smiled at the engine's low growl. Shifting into gear, he sped out of the driveway and down the street.

     As he sped into downtown, he didn't bother avoiding anyone. People ran into the streets and he plowed right over them. Bodies went flying in all directions. A few times he even drove onto the grass just to hit a few more people. He smiled at the screams and carnage taking place around him. His whole life, the people of this town laughed at him, mocked him and humiliated him. This night would be his and his alone. All of them would pay. He would see to it.