Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Seven

Even here, sitting inside the bar, I can still smell the smoke and the acrid, sickly sweet taste of cooked flesh in the air. The smoke filled half the neighborhood once the grenades really got to work, making the street look like a fucking war zone right of Baghdad or Detroit or something. The fire department actually did respond, to my surprise, but by the time they got there, it was far too late. There was nothing left of the house but the remnants of the concrete foundations and a lot of ash and soot. The fire burned so hot it actually turned the concrete foundations to molten fucking slag. The medical examiner was called, but they’ll need fucking dental records and a shitload of time to identify anyone in there now. Hell, I’d be surprised if they’ll even be able to do that with how hot that fucking fire was.

Thermite burns at over 4000 degrees, and white phosphorous burns at over 5000 degrees. The fire department got a fun surprise when they tried to hose down the house. The fire was so hot, that the water just caused a gigantic steam explosion that flattened the rest of the structure, turning it into a molten inferno inside a crater. Wood and fire and molten metal flew everywhere, and hurled a burning roof beam onto a cop that fucking squashed him like the little cocksucker that he is. 

Or was, rather. 

I grin to myself and chuckle as I take a sip of my beer. I’ll shed no tears for a dead cop in this hellhole of a city. It’s almost 1:30 in the morning. The fire department left about a half hour ago, but the cops and the meat wagon from the city morgue are still outside, picking over the remains. I look around as I take another sip of beer. The bar is practically empty, only the bartender and a possibly homeless man remain, sitting at the bar hobbled over their respective glasses. When the ignorant masses inside the bar smelled the smoke and heard the sirens, they just poured out of the doors to gawk, yelling and running towards the whole mess like headless chickens. Most of them are still out there, chattering and posting Tweets and Facebook statuses and Instagram posts about it all. I take another sip of my beer and grimace to myself, thinking of those jackals outside hoping to get a look at a crispy critter of a corpse so they can shout “WORLDSTAR!” or some such ignorant nonsense for their Vine posts. One of them probably called the fire department, trying to be a Good Samaritan. That’s their good deed of the week, so they can go back to their heroin and child pornography and Big Macs without feeling bad about themselves.

I gulp down the rest of the glass, and force my mind to switch over to thinking about Antonio and his goons burning to death. Their skin and organs boiling and finally vaporizing like that one scene with Sarah Connor in T2. I can feel their pain, their suffering, their despair. It makes me happy knowing that I was their Judge, their Jury, and their executioner. I grin to myself. Now they’re nothing but ash. Good riddance, pricks. This city could do with a few less crackhead wannabe gangsters on the streets. I pull my mind back to the present and stand up, throwing a few singles on the table. I walk outside and light a Marlboro, exhaling the thick, blue mentholated smoke as I look over towards the collection of police cars and the crowd of people up the street. Probably time to head home now. I grin again, and walk away, drawing on my cigarette. Sometimes I think that I smoke too much, but considering that I probably won’t make it to age 30 anyhow, I'll quickly dismiss the notion, and then I usually just light up another one. I can’t get cancer if I’m already dead, now can I?

I walk the few blocks to where I stashed my truck and look it over, making sure nobody has fucked with it. I take the last drag on my cigarette and flick it away as I jump in the truck and turn the key. As incognito as I’d like to be right now, that’s just not possible with a Hemi engine. It roars with 8 cylinders of fury as I start it. I wince at the noise. Shit could wake the dead. I creep out of the space behind the liquor store and stop at the sidewalk, making sure everything is clear. I don’t see any crackheads shambling towards me, or any cops with their pistols drawn screaming at me. I pull away and drive the half mile or so to the parking deck down the block from my apartment building and roar into a parking space on the second level, killing the engine immediately after I put it into park. The sound of the engine is magnified even more in here. I hop out and lock it, walking towards the entrance. The heavyset black woman is still in the booth, but it looks to me like she’s in a deep sleep, with her head back against the wall and her mouth open. Maybe she overdosed on fentanyl or something. I smirk and walk out and up the street, drawing my jacket closer to my body. The nights are starting to get a little colder now.

I yank the door of the building open and with a sigh I mount the threadbare stairwell, making them creak with each step. I’m sure you won’t believe it, but, it actually still smells like cabbage and rancid farts. What a shock. I pause though, frowning. I can smell something else. Something much more…flowery. I grimace, trying to decide whether it’s pleasant or not. Intermingling with the cabbage and ass, I decide it isn’t. I walk up a few more stairs, the flowery smell getting more powerful, and see the silhouette of someone standing at the end of the hallway, looking out the window. Probably that Asian kid again. Maybe his art skills have improved? But no, as I approach my door I see it isn’t the kid. It’s a woman in a black dress with fluorescent white skin and black hair, a plume of cigarette smoke hanging above her. She turns around at the jingling of my keys, and I can see who it is now.

Carla.

I raise an eyebrow at her. I can feel a sense of unease creeping over me. Uh oh. She takes a deep drag on her cigarette and exhales with a long breath. Her eyes are wide, staring right through me in what could only be described as a combination of surprise, anger, frustration, and appall.

“Boy, you really fucked up now.”