ANGELS AND GHOSTS

The Avenging Angel

The man stared at her, his mind in turmoil.

The girl was probably in her mid-twenties and stood at maybe 5’4” or 5’5”, and she was slim and had an attractive face, her green eyes bright and alive. She seemed mostly calm and relaxed, and while the man doubted that she would hurt him, she had already slapped him once, and most disconcerting of all was the fact that she was waving a knife in front of his face. If he was going to engage a person to force a confession out of someone, he would hire a six foot four, two-hundred and eighty-pound biker, not someone who looked like a model, not someone who looked like one of his future victims.

The woman had stated that she had spoken to James and that was troubling. James and him were tight, and they had covered for one another on a few occasions, although the man knew that James was a pussy. If James had been placed in a similar situation to the one he found himself in, there was every possibility that he would cave in and fess up to the lie. Two choices; the truth or lie …

The man stared at her as a flush of courage coursed through him. A female, a young female, and yeah, sure she had a knife, but normal, young women don’t go around cutting people up.

“Just let me go.” he said calmly.

Rachael coughed out a humourless laugh, then shook her head, “Did you understand my question?”

“I don’t know what this is about …” he began, then his head rocked to the side as she slapped him as hard as she could.

“Last chance Scumbag!” she snorted. “Just answer my fucking question!”

He shrieked in surprise, and Rachael hit him with a back-hander, her knuckles smashing into the right side of his chin. Breathing heavily, she leant right into his face and spat out tthreateningly, “Just answer my fucking question, or you’re going to start losing body parts!”

In desperation, he bellowed, “No, no I didn’t do it!”

Rachael composed herself, stood straight and then nodded, “Okay, well I guess you answered the question.”

The man relaxed a little, although he didn’t like the way her eyes seemed to be glinting with expectation.

“I know you’re lying,” she began calmly, “Because in my little chat with James, he told me about the necklace.”

The man stiffened.

“He told me where it was, and yeah, I recovered it, and then my people showed it to her parents, and they confirmed that it belonged to Ellie.”

Rachael delicately ran the knife up his right thigh, stopping at his shaved testicles. “So you lied, and to me, that means you just ticked the wrong box Bucko, and instead of confessing to your crime, you’re quite prepared to let me and this blade exact proper justice.”

The man bowed his head, trying to slow his racing mind. He was certain that she wouldn’t kill him, although with the point of the knife resting against his testicles, he assumed that she could do a significant amount of damage; so maybe, he did only have one choice.

“Yeah, okay, okay, I did it, but it was an accident.”

Rachael sneered at him, “Yeah, you accidently strangled her to death?”

He looked up at her timidly, “It, it was, she just went crazy you know, and I panicked.”

“You know what, I’d probably go a little crazy too, if someone was raping me and strangling me.”

“No, you have to understand, I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Rachael waited until his eyes refocussed on her, then she said calmly, “Okay, but let me make this quite clear; I do mean to hurt you.”

She didn’t particularly like torturing people, although she had been paid to make this scumbag suffer, so she dug the point of the knife into the top of his right thigh, then she dragged it down for three inches, the man screaming as the flesh peeled open and blood spurted out.

“Ohhh yeah, scream tough guy! We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and nobody is going to hear you.”

She placed the knife on his left thigh, and then carved the top of his thigh open. The man screamed in pain, then shook his head around frantically as he yelled, “Wait, wait; you said that you were going to turn me over to the police!”

“Ohh dear,” Rachael began as she feigned guilt and coyly placed her left hand over her mouth, “You caught me out, because yeah, I admit it, I was lying.”

His thighs had been cut, blood spewing out, and it felt as if they were on fire, and the man, in survival mode pleaded, “I’ll, I’ll confess, I’ll go to the cops.”

“No you won’t,” she replied, “Your last minutes on the planet are going to be spent with me.”

“No, you can’t do this!” he screamed.

Rachael went to her back-pack and produced the garrotte, and she showed it to him then said drolly, “Say hi to your executioner.”

The garrotte was four lengths of eighteen-inch fishing line, the lengths welded at both ends onto timber handles.

“What, what are you going to do?” he blubbered.

“You, you evil fucking monster, are just about to experience what it’s like to be strangled, while at the same time, you bleed to death.”

“You, you,” he snorted, “You’re fucking crazy!”

Rachael rarely got offended by anything, but sometimes, the truth did hurt. She grimaced, clenched her right fist, then leant back and punched him square in the face. Panting with the exhaustion of the action, and also because of the wild array of emotions dancing in her mind, she screamed, “You fucking idiot! Genuinely crazy people do not like being called crazy!”

She slipped the fingers of her right hand under the torn flesh of his right thigh, and gently urged the skin to separate from the thigh muscle, the man’s scream almost silent, so intense was the pain that he was experiencing.

“If you call normal people crazy, they don’t give a fuck yeah, but if you call a crazy person crazy, well, yeah, they do just go crazy.”

Rachael stood back to observe; blood from his shredded thighs spilling onto the ground, so she said conversationally, “Me, yeah, I suffer from a few different of kinds of crazy, but to make my crazy go craziest, all I need is for an evil monster to call me crazy.”

The man was out of the conversation, in too much pain to understand what she was saying, and Rachael knew it, knew that there would be no further oratory contributions from him except for the screams, all the same, she liked to let her crazy run free.

She had been paid to kill him and make him suffer, and yeah, sure, she would fulfil her part of the contract, because she’d seen photos of Ellie Singleton, and they had affected her. She looked like a nice seventeen-year-old girl, and from all reports, she was actually a nice kid; although her last hours on the planet were the things that bounced around in Rachael’s mind.

Bashed, raped, then strangled.

Rachael’s crazy danced in her mind; the crazy doing a hip-hop slew, then the crazy did the jitter-bug, then it did a little heavy metal head banging, then her crazy put on its boxing gloves.

“Somebody asked me once; Do you enjoy killing people? And I said, no.” Rachael muttered as she glared at him, the pain having his body lurching backwards as far as the chair would allow.

Staring at him, watching him suffer, Rachael’s mind drifted back to the moment when she realised that she was actually crazy, that she was simply a cluster-fuck of bubbling aggression. It had been after her first kill, more than five years ago, paid to kill a murdering rapist, and she had been a blubbering mess for a few days afterwards. She had emotionally collapsed when the reality hit her; she had killed a human being … although her thoughts had subtly changed over the next few days, thinking about the ass-holes victims, and a new part of her persona had been created. The victims had been two young girls, one nineteen, one fifteen, and their last moments on the planet would have been horrific; scared witless, bashed, abused, raped then killed.

The new Rachael Terina, willing-and-able-killer-for-hire had been born a week after her first kill; Blubber and whimper because you killed a murdering, raping scumbag … are you kidding me? Just think about the victim’s; hear their screams, imagine their terror, wear their shoes … After the moral issues and ethical dilemmas had been dealt with, she no longer saw herself as a murderer, she saw herself as being an Avenging Angel; Hello, let me introduce you to the new Really-Fucked-Up-but-also-Really-Angry Rachael Terina. Rachael liked the way that doctors or scholars had initials after their names, because it made them seem more important; My name is John Citizen, PHD, MBA. In Rachael’s world, she was important, so to her she deserved initials after her name; My name is Rachael Terina AA, FA (Avenging Angel, Female Assassin.)

This pathetic murderer blubbering in front of her would be number nineteen, the Avenging Angel’s nineteenth successful assignment, so Rachael smiled for him, a true smile, although he was obviously in too much pain to appreciate how pretty she looked when she smiled truly.

Rachael stared at him, watching his agony, watched his blood drip, and she wished that Ellie Singleton could see what she was witnessing. Calmly, Rachael said, “Sometimes I do enjoy killing people, I mean people like you.”

Rachael moved behind him and slipped the garrotte around his throat, and she sensed her Angelic wings spreading to their maximum span, only minutes now until the Avenging Angel disposed of another evil monster. She moved closer, subtly applying pressure, the thin fishing lines already digging into his skin.

“I’d like to know what hurts more, bleeding to death or being strangled, but I’m thinking that you’re such an ass-hole, you probably wouldn’t tell me.”

With intent, she pulled back, curiously fascinated as all four lengths of the fishing line burrowed into his throat, blood dribbling out and streaming down his chest. She reflected that paper cuts hurt, like nick yourself on an innocent piece of A4 and it hurt like a fuck-a-ninny, so four strands of wire slicing your throat open must hurt like all-fuck.

This evening had been a bit of a cluster-fuck already, because she’d sneezed and pissed her pants, and the Los Angeles Angels were going to fuck up again, indeed, it seemed like the Angels were only created to fuck her up; then she thought of the photos of Ellie, a seventeen-year-old girl who’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time; a seventeen-year-old girl who was never going to get the chance to fall in love, or never get the chance to feel special on her wedding day, a young girl who never got the chance to be eighteen.

Rachael braced her knee on the back of the chair, and then pulled with her all might. “If there is a Hell ass-hole, you should be there in about three minutes!”

*

With all procedural matters attended to, Rachael placed the radio and the garrotte in her back-pack and surveyed the scene, running through it all again. “No hair fibres, tick; no fingerprints, tick; no signs that I have ever been here, tick.”

Almost ready to go, almost ready to leave, so Rachael stepped in his blood, then trekked her way to the front door. She turned and looked, happy with the very clear pattern of a few of the bloody footprints, then she closed her eyes.

She waited a moment, waited to see if Guilt or Remorse would tap on her conscience; but no, both of those fucked-up emotions were no longer a part of who she was, and she spread her arms out, sucked in a breath, then imagined that her white wings were gently fluttering down and coming to rest by her sides.

She gazed at the lifeless body, slung her back-pack over her right shoulder and then scurried away.

The abandoned shack was isolated, out in the middle of nowhere, and Rachael had no idea of how long it would be before someone discovered his body.

She loved National Forests, loved the feeling of country they engendered, loved the feeling of being back to nature, and she especially loved the fact that they were the ideal location to dispose of bodies. She had often thought that she would make the ideal serial-killer; know what to do, know what not to do, do the preparation then tick all the boxes; but no, she could never kill anybody.

Except bad-asses.

Being a female assassin suited her, because psychologically she was a melting pot of severe emotional disorders, although she wasn’t an assassin in the traditional sense, Listen potential new client, I must inform you that I only kill bad-asses!

That was why she had an agent, somebody who liaised with the clients and did all the boring paperwork, No, I’m sorry, my contact doesn’t kill a man just because he’s sleeping with the check-out chick from the local supermarket; my contact only kills murderers who have escaped justice.

Nice earner for her agent on this one too; a cool $5,000- for a couple of meet-and-greets and a few phone calls.

Rachael jumped in her car and turned on the high beams, driving slowly as she crept up the gravel track.

It took her two minutes to drive up the track, then a further five minutes to navigate her way up the dirt road. Two hundred yards from the Highway, she turned off the high beams, pulled on the hand-brake, shoved the gear stick into park, then climbed out.

Rachael grabbed her torch and blower, switched the torch on then scuttled back down, focussing the torches beam on the dirt road and gravel track. Both stretches of road were dusty, and the imprint left by her tyres was negligible, all the same, she turned on the blower and blew the imprint away, clouds of dust puffing into the still night.

She walked up to the Highway, looking both ways, listening intently.

Clear.

She raced back to the car and steered it on to Cribb Highway, quickly pushing it up to sixty. She was tempted to turn on the radio to see how much the Angels got beaten by, but no, fuck the Angels. The treble, four, five and six-folds would nett her a tidy return, although the return paled into insignificance when compared to her fee for this assignment.

The payment was in the lower range, because Ellie’s parents were battlers, and her contact didn’t want to financially over burden the grieving parents, all the same, $45,000- was a nice return for the eighteen days Rachael had committed to this assignment.

At the age of twenty-seven, Rachael now had nineteen notches in her belt, nineteen big pay days. Rachael remembered them all, remembered every one of her victims, and maybe that wasn’t hard to do, because she had almost formed a quasi-relationship with each of them. On receiving an assignment, she would learn everything she could about the potential target, then the tracking would begin. Watch them, record everything they did, every moment of the day and night, until a pattern emerged, then begin working on an abduction plan.

So thorough and meticulous was she, that all nineteen assignments had gone without a hitch, although she often pondered that there must be something wrong with the judicial system to have her being the dispenser of justice. Criminals had so many rights these days, and the smart murderers knew the system, knew how to play it, knew how to get the system working for them. Although if they were dumb fucks, which most of them were; they hired an ass-hole defence lawyer who knew how to play the game.

All the same, nineteen of the dumb fucks hadn’t been expecting an assassin to hunt them down.

Rachael smiled, another big pay day, Money, money, money …

She loved money, loved that it enabled her to live a comfortable life and indulge in all the luxuries she enjoyed, but she also loved exacting revenge. Most normal people could never kill anyone, indeed most normal people could never genuinely hurt anybody, although Rachael didn’t consider herself normal.

Something happened to her eight years ago, and it had changed her outlook on life, changed her from being normal, changed her into someone who could kill another person.

Thinking about Him soured her mood.

After eight years, he was still there, still in her mind, he being responsible for her crazy. She’d love to go to a psychologist and say, Just erase all memories and images of Him, and then maybe I’ll be normal again, yeah? But no, wasn’t going to happen, because Rachael knew that he was there forever; he was the one who had psychologically fucked her up, he was her nightmare, he was an emotional debt that she would be repaying until the end of her days. She still remembered everything about it, remembered even the most minute details, and thinking about him made her … “Huh?” Rachael blew out in surprise. As she approached a bend, she noticed something up ahead, something strange.

Rachael eased her foot off the accelerator as she rounded the bend, then she shook her head in confusion. With the night fully descended and the area blanketed in a deep darkness, a huge circle of light shone in front of her, the light flickering, seemingly hovering six feet above the road. Rachael blinked her eyes rapidly, shook her head again, then pulled the car to a complete stop, “What the fuck?”

As soon as her gaze settled fully on the hovering light, it seemed to disperse, or fade, although in a confusing moment, she thought she saw a figure standing behind the light, or maybe even more bizarre, standing IN the hazy light.

She pulled over to the side of the road and got out, looking in front of her, then behind her, then to the Heavens, then she shook her head again, rattled.

She pulled the beanie off and skimmed a hand through her hair, and one solid thought knocked on her mind. Cocaine propelled you, it sent you soaring into the stratosphere, and if your mind was loose and receptive, sometimes you could imagine some really weird shit. Not her though, not tonight, for she was focussed, still coming down from the buzz of sending another ass-hole to meet his maker, yet … “What the fuck was that?” she muttered.

She’d read reports about people swearing that they’d seen unexplainable bright lights in the night sky, although the witnesses usually turned out to be suspect characters. No important people with glittering futures, like sports stars, celebrities or politicians, ever saw bright lights in the sky, it always seemed to Jim-Bob, the local hillbilly, who’d just scoffed back a belly full of moonshine who witnessed the unexplainable light.

Although she had seen the light. She looked around again, totally confused; Did I, did I just see that?

She looked to the Heavens, looked behind her, all around her, then she scrambled back to the car as the warnings started pinging in her mind. She didn’t want to be seen on this road tonight, didn’t want her car to be seen so close to the scene of a murder, So get the fuck outta here girl … and she sprinted towards the car, although she almost stumbled when something caught her attention.

She froze, staring at the leg.

Cautiously, she approached, then she let out a gasp; a body, a person in the ditch.

One, two, three, four seconds of indecision, Fuck off or, or … check her …

Rachael jumped into the ditch and grabbed a wrist, feeling for a pulse. She knew what she was doing, as she had gained full certification in first aid procedures. She hadn’t undertaken first aid courses because she wanted to save lives, she had taken them so that she could positively confirm that her targets were dead; although her skills were just about to be called on.

Wrist, throat, forehead, and Rachael cursed as she realised that this poor woman may have already passed away.

Rachael gently tried to pry her left shoulder upwards, and when the woman’s body was lying flat out, she placed her hands over her heart and pushed. “Hey, come on, come on.” she urged.

Rachael pushed again, with a little more pressure, then again. “Come on baby, come on!”

Anxious, frazzled, Rachael pushed, counting out, “One, two three; push! One, two, three, push!”

The body flattened down with each push, and Rachael realised that she was almost wedging the body in the narrow ditch with each push, but Jesus …

“One, two, three, push! Come on, come on …”

With her right hand still on the woman’s chest, Rachael rocked her head back in despair and cried out, “Fuck!”

And the body jerked.

Startled, Rachael stared at the body, then she urged, “Ohhh yeah, come on honey, fight!”

A jerk meant a sign of life, although this poor creature was obviously in a bad way.

Brocksley Hospital was just under an hour away, so it could be at least sixty minutes before an ambulance would get here, then another sixty minutes for the return trip, although Rachael didn’t think this woman had sixty minutes to spare, let alone one hundred and twenty.

Besides, she didn’t have her cell phone; the phone was in Brocksley with her friend Marco.

Marco had been instructed to make at least four calls from her phone, and if Rachael was ever interviewed over the incident in the abandoned shack, she could plead, ‘I was home all night; check my cell records.’

She raced to her car and opened the back door, hurried back to the figure and placed her arms underneath the body. The woman most likely had been hit by a car, and Rachael knew that cranial and spinal concerns meant that you should never move a body without professional guidance; but to her, it appeared that this woman’s survival depended on getting her to a hospital in the shortest possible time.

With both legs in the ditch, Rachael lifted her, her arms under the woman’s shoulders and thighs, and groaning with the weight, the futility of the action hit her. The ditch was only eighteen inches deep, although Rachael instinctively knew that she wouldn’t be able to hold the body and brace one leg on the siding, and then push herself out of the ditch with the other leg, because the gravel siding was too slippery.

“Sorry Miss.” she groaned, as she lay the body on the siding, then hopped out of the ditch.

Cautionary tales from the first aid courses exploded in Rachael’s mind, Don’t move a body in these situations … Rachael hadn’t just moved her, she’d picked her up, then put her down, and was now in the process of picking her up again.

It seemed though, that she was breathing; the breathing stuttered and inconsistent, barely strong enough to blow out a candle, but breathing meant life.

Like a weight-lifter, Rachael squatted, slid her hands under the body, then pushed herself up, her thighs straining and her back issuing a threat, Hoo girl, you gunna pay for this … Stumbling, groaning, she reached the open car door, braced her right leg in the floor space of the back seat, and as gently as she could, lay the body on the seat. Rachael wasn’t one to panic, although securing the body in the back seat was going to present problems.

She raced to the other rear door, opened it, then slipped her hands under the body and pulled it towards her, then gently closed the door. Dashing around to the other side, she pushed the woman’s right leg in, then shook her head. The left leg was going to present major problems, the leg still dangling out of the car. The foot pointed away from her body, which Rachael presumed meant that her hip, pelvis or knee had suffered major damage.

Tentatively, she tried to lift the leg, and the woman groaned, barely audible, but still a sound. The leg was inflexible, and Rachael didn’t want to force it in, so she carefully climbed into the back, pulled the body into a sitting position, then rested the body back until it was sitting upright against the door. The woman’s head slumped, and Rachael suspected that the body was only a bump or a sharp turn away from falling sideways, which could see the woman’s bloody head banging on the head-rest of the front seat.

She fed her hand behind the body and pulled the seat belt out, then secured it under the woman’s left arm, having to gently pull the woman’s right hip towards her to clip the seat belt in place.

Another groan, or maybe a sigh, and Rachael fretted that it sounded like an expiring sigh.

Rachael scrambled out and gently began pushing the door closed, noting with despair that the foot of the mangled leg was providing resistance, and grimacing, she pushed until she heard the door click closed, and she mumbled, “Fucking shit, sorry Miss.”