THE SECOND SIGHT
Chapter 20
HIDEOUS TAKES CHARGE
Location: BOB’S APARTMENTS
BOAT
Now look here, Bob, there’s no nee-d for this.
They have been in frays together, chased down girls, the thrills and the rides, even got to a point Bob always wanted to be with him all the time, and sometimes gave Boat the jealous angle when he chose something over him.
Boat had thought he could get away with things which other people couldn’t where Bob is concerned.
He had been sure of that one fact, but here is Bob, as unpredictable as ever. The look on Bob’s face sends chills down Boat’s spine.
Boat is not a coward, and he certainly is no midget. H is big, young and tough, more than equipped with a set of GojuFist skills, and could have whipped Bob like a baby on a neutral ground.
But Bob has never played fair where his supposed enemies are concerned, and that is where the danger lies.
BOB
(in a dangerously soft voice)
Do I look like a f*¢king cunt to you? Stop screwing me, Boat. f*¢k you, boy. I never would’ve believed this of you. Shit, I liked you, treated you like a kid brother. Why the f*¢k do you want to screw me?
BOAT
(calmly)
People change, Bob. I want out, simple. Turns out my old man has known all along about me running a drug racket. And there are other things happening in my life you wouldn’t un-derstand. I’m so damn confused and I just nee-d some space. Why the hell are you behaving like I dropped you into a gas chamber, man?
BOB
(in a fierce whisper)
Maybe you did, kid, maybe you did!
BOAT
What the hell are you talking about?
Bob stands up, and he is holding a gun which he points at Boat’s head. The barrel is elongated by a perforated silencer.
He leans forward, and cold, dangerous metal ki-ssed Boat’s forehead. Somewhere de-ep in his mind a voice roars in indignation. He has just about had a bellyful of being threatened, of being pushed around and stomped on.
BOB
(hissing)
Don’t you f*¢king play dumb with me, Yaw. I f*¢king hate f*¢king hypocrites and greedy as-s-holes who behave like Jesus but snitch on their f*¢king friends!
Boat stares at him, so incredulous that he is dumbfounded for a moment, gawking at Bob with pained eyes.
BOAT
(hoarsely)
Snitch? You dumb bastard, Bob! You think I ratted on you? To whom?
BOB
(unperturbed)
I got contacts, Yaw. Good contacts in the police for-ce. I have reliable info that a close friend, one I consider a brother, has made a deal with the cops, the good cops I couldn’t buy off, to drage me down. You know, it cuts my heart de-eply, because I would’ve killed myself for you. That was why I was willing to leave this hellhole and give you the market here on a silver platter, but no, you want it all, don’t you? f*¢k you, Yaw Boat, you’ve sorely disappointed me!
BOAT
(angrily)
Well f*¢k you too, Bob, if you think I’ll ever do such a thing! How could you believe I’m capable of that kind of shit after all that we’ve been throu-gh?
BOB
(snarling)
Don’t give me that crap! We haven’t been throu-ghshit, boy! You were just a f*¢ked-up bastard when I found you! Just a weak-knee-d little prick. You don’t f*¢king know what I’ve gone throu-gh. I gave you life, I made you what you are and you still ain’t shit! How dumb can you be, thinking you can double-cross me? I’ve survived better foes than you, Boat. How could you believe it is even remotely possible to turn me over to the cops?
He speaks with such an upsurge of fury that Boat recoils, completely flustered. This is a part of Bob that Boat knows, but has never dreamt will ever be directed at him.
He emphasizes each word by jabbing Boat’s forehead with the gun. At that moment Boat knows what sort of guy Boat is.
He knows that Bob is an unstable guy. Boat has been walking with a dangerously unhinged guy for such a long time without realizing it.
Here is a psychologically disturbed man, a man denied of some vital ingredient that makes a person whole, and as a result he is forever nursing a grudge, angry at the world all the time, prone to let go at any moment. Suddenly all his erratic behaviours in the past make perfect sense to Boat now.
BOAT
I’ve told you once already, Bob, that I’m not a damn snitch. I don’t want your damn market or your drugs, or your money. Something bad happened to me, something you wouldn’t un-derstand in a thousand years, so I won’t even bother explaining to you. I just want you to un-derstand that I’m no snitch, and you better looking for the culprit somewhere else. I’m fed up with this operation, and I want out. It’s as simple as that, so stop shitting me and let me ride out!
He quirks an eyebrow at Boat and smiles. Boat doesn’t like that smile. It feels just like being ki-ssed by a mamba.
BOB
(dangerously)
Great speech, boy. But I decide when you walk away. Nobody quits on me. I decide when you walk. You know me like no one does, except perhaps Ali over there. You know more about my operations than any human alive. And do you know why? It’s because I trusted you! But I see trust is a word you don’t have in your vocabs. I’m sorry, kid, but I can’t let you go. You can hurt me with the info you have about me.
He deftly moves the tip of the gun away from Boat’s forehead and takes a step back, so that Boat sees the hole in the gun, and suddenly Boat knows that that if nothing happens in the space of a few seconds – earthquake, hailstorm, melting of the earth – he will be a dead man.
The enormity of that fact almost renders him immobile.
Boat would have screamed then, or done something. He probably would have made a move at Bob, lunging and trying to kick the gun out of his hand, which would have been a singularly stupid thing to do.
Maybe he would have swivelled on Ali and rammed a shoulder into him, but that would have presented a nice target for Bob to aim at, and Bob definitely isn’t quite the kind of man who will wake up screaming at night because he shot a man he once considered his best friend in the back.
Yes, in a normal world Boat’s actions would have been a thousand fold in his bid to avoid being killed, all of them ending in total disaster, probably.
But Boat’s world is not normal anymore, and he does not react in any way because, at the point of death, he is gripped with abject terror at what happens next.
He watches, transfixed with total curiosity and a form of detached interest, as the eel-like structures in Hideous the Demon’s mouth suddenly shoot across Boat’s shoulders, heading with uncanny swiftness at Bob.
Boat watches with dumb shock as the demon’s tentacles begin to twirl around the gun in Bob’s hand, covering the hole in the silencer, moving around the trigger, seeming to bind Bob’s hand to the gun.
More tentacles shoot out, meandering into Bob’s mouth and nostrils, drilling into his ears, messing up his eyes, and giving him the look of a degenerate demon from hell.
Boat stares at him, spooked out of his senses, and it doesn’t even cross his mind once that he is in real mortal danger.
BOB
(sadly)
Sorry, Boatboy. I liked you, kid, but unfortunately, I have to cover myself. Hope to meet you in hell soon, my boy.
If Boat hasn’t been so taken up with the activities of Hideous, he would have found it ha-rd not believing that there is a note of genuine regret in Bob’s voice.
The gun was locked on Boat’s heart.
Bob closes his eyes briefly… and fires!
Boat recoils with sudden shock, his body going throu-ghthe process, waiting for the swift impact and even swifter flash of pain, steeling himself for the for-ce that would throw him back against the wall, propelled by the impact of the heavy bullets fired at such close range.
Truth is, the gun doesn’t fire.
There is a muted phlaat kind of sound, and that is all.
The ensuing silence is thick and abnormal.
Uncomfortably thick.
Even the doped bis-×ual girls are staring with horror, silenced out of their lust-ful blasphemy for once.
Bob’s face turns a meaty colour, like an overcooked piece of ham.
He growls and fires again and again, and each time there comes the same terrible farting sound.
Boat could have told him a lot of things. He could have told him to go take a shower because he is trying to kill the son-of-a-gun who is going to be the next king of the demons, and that there is no way Bob is going to succeed in killing him because his body is nee-ded by a superior demon whose small-boy demon called Hideous is now protecting Boat, the Chosen Vessel.
There is just no way that the evil cohorts are going to allow their Chosen Vessel to be pumped full of bullets!
Boat could have told Bob to stick the gun up his own mouth because it is crammed full with demon tentacles, the best bullet-proof in the world.
Bob’s face has gone an unhealthy grey, his mind boggled. Finally he gives up and looks at Boat with a sheepish smile on his face.
But there is still murder in the depths of his eyes, and a strange fear.
BOB
(dangerously)
Boatboy, you’ve always had the luck of the devil. Fine time for the gun to jam on me, don’t you think?
It takes Boat a split second to realize that Bob is buying time, that he wants Boat off-track for that split second where all the difference can be made.
Bob knows of Boat’s fighting prowess. Boat is big, and knows how to take care of himself when it comes down to the nasty bits. The two of them have been in their fair share of scra-pes, and Bob knows of Boat’s martial arts background, that particularly terrible way of fighting, that un-derground martial arts form known as the GojuFist.
Bob’s eyes shift just a fraction to take in something over Boat’s shoulder. It is enough, however.
Boat senses, rather than feels, the rush of air, the tiny frictional whisper caused by gun clearing leather, and he knows that Ali is on the move, ready to cut him down.
Goaded by a sudden desi-re to live, Boat flings himself to the right, reaching out for the ha-rd-backed metal chair facing the desk.
Boat at first thinks he is doing things by himself until he sees that Hideous has sprouted more limbs, and that those limbs are wrapped around Boat’s wai-st and shoulders, propelling him out of harm’s way.
There are three sharp spits from Ali’s silenced gun. The bullets dig furrows in the walls, and the last one shatters one of the windows.
Bob, transfixed by Boat’s apparently lightning reflexes, is rendered immobile as he stares at Boat. That is probably what saved his life because if he had so much as shifted his gaze, Ali’s last bullet would have turned the right side of his face into a crimson disaster.
Ali is turning with Boat, cool as Clint Eastwood, murder swimming in his eyes, the gun still trained on Boat.
Yaw Boat pivots once, the chair clutched in his hand, swinging round. If Ali had fired then he probably would have put an unwanted Adam’s apple in Boat’s throat, but he glances up at the chair looming large over him, and tries to duck, his attention momentarily diverted.
For a professional he acts rather dumbly, trying to do two things at the same time.
The chair smashes across his right shoulder with enough for-ce to rock his shoulder, but in a rather bemused way Boat notices that its for-ce has been magnified tenfold by the greenish tentacles of Hideous which are pulling the chair down.
There is a nasty wrenching and breaking sound, and Ali utters a shrill scream of utter pain. His whole shoulder moves downward, completely dislocated and shattered.
Boat knows that Ali’s shoulder will never be the same again. The gun clatters harmlessly to the floor.
Boat follows the momentum of his movement – or rather Hideous propels him forward – and grabs Ali’s injured arm.
Ali shrieks like a gutted pig, and the girls scream too. Boat swings Ali round and lifts his body off the floor. Bob has drawn out a second gun, also fixed with a silencer, and is aiming at Boat.
Bob’s face looks really terrified. Boat throws Ali at him, broken arm and all, throwing him off his shoulder. Bob fired rapidly.
He might have been both mad and desperate, because Ali’s figure is directly in his line of fire.
The terrible spits of the gun are ba-rely audible, but the bullets have a lot to say about Ali’s looks. One bullet catches him on the outside of the right cheek, taking away the whole of his left face.
Bone and goo flew into the air, giving Ali a look like one of those freaky zombie characters in horror movies. Another bullet smashes into his throat, turning it into strands of bloodied flesh. The third and fourth bullets hit his brow and jaw respectively, and by the time Ali falls heavily on the desk, he is without a head.
He lies on the desk, his gullet making a high-pitched whining sound as his life for-ce gushes out in red streams on the desk.
The girls are screaming, still entwined, their artificial faces reflecting true feelings for a change. Bob is staring at the damaged Ali with a foolish half-grin on his face.
For a moment it seems Bob can’t fully grasp what has happened.
Boat throws open the door and runs out of the apartment.
There is a sudden enraged howl, and a door crashes open behind him, and he knows that Bob has not given up his intents yet, and is pursuing him to get the job done.
Boat is in the dark alley, running throu-ghstinking water without a care.
Suddenly debris flies off the wall just above his head, and when he looks down the alley he sees the dim outline of Bob running towards him holding two guns in his hands.
He has taken a shot at Boat.
Tbc