My First Job by Julius Fish

My First Job by Julius Fish

I arrived two hours early, stepping into what could only be described as heaven on earth. Behind the counter stood an old Arab man who gave a true, genuine smile when the bells above the door jingled. The place smelled of roasted meats. Quaint in a way with cheap plastic chairs and tables of various colors clearly bought from a thrift store or a yard sale. Soft orange-white overhead lights gave it a warm, inviting, home feeling. Not that my own home was ever known as warm. Or could be considered a home. Not that the place I existed as a child was ever known as warm. Better. More accurate.

I walked to the register and ordered the lamb shawarma. After sitting at one of the tables, I tore into my meal.

Tinfoil wrapping came off the beautiful pita and meat. An explosion of steam washed over my face. My first bite made me feel like I was losing my virginity again. Key difference being the shawarma was better than the sex. The pita—a pillow upon which the tender lamb rested its weary head. Sensations of salt and smoke covered my taste buds. Crisp lettuce, onion, and tomato gave masterful contrast to the softness and warmth of the other components and created a culinary perfection no person could deny being anything less than impeccable. Was I dead? Was I alive? I didn’t know. I looked to the man sweeping behind the counter. An artist. A true master of his craft. I was in love.

I finished my meal and ordered another. The man passed it to me with a hand missing two fingers. I clenched my jaw holding back tears. “Thank you for everything you do. You’re making the world a better place.”

He bowed. He gave a god damn bow like a Broadway actor would after a Tony winning performance. Within seconds of meeting him I knew if it came to it, I’d kill for this man. “Buddy, you come back any time. Okay buddy?”

“I will be here for you.” I choked on the words. “Always.”

I ate my second shawarma and opened the notes application in my interface. When you join the Navy Seals, the military installed several different software packages into your neural implants. Because I was a normal person again, those were gone, and I needed to do this the old-fashioned way. I scanned the restaurant.

Chairs and tables would hurt but wouldn’t be lethal. I could count six knives in the kitchen. The shop owner most likely had more. Safe to assume ten knives total. None of them electric. I’d make them bleed but couldn’t kill them. Three double fryers with hot oil. Perfect for dunking heads. A pot of boiling water on the range. Throw the water in their faces. Then smash their skulls. A reasonable course of action. The main entrance could be a quick escape. If blocked, a narrow hallway leading to the back exit would even out the numbers advantage in a fight. Trays upon trays of baklava drizzled in honey behind the glass counter. My stomach growled. I bought some baklava.

I made notes of everything and their locations keeping it minimized in the corner of my field of vision. Nobody was actively trying to kill me—to my knowledge—but better safe than sorry.

A gaunt man in a well-tailored suit and gold-rimmed spectacles pulled out the chair across from me. He touched his slicked hair to make sure not even one was out of place after he took his seat. He sat rigid with his hands folded on the table. The look of him felt unnatural. Like an alien pretending to be human. “Mr. Blank,” he said

I swallowed my burning rage and put on a shit-eating grin. “Mr. Blank was my asshole father. Please. Call me Seth.”

“Very well.” He rolled his eyes. “Seth. My employer, Mr. Zuck, is impressed by your work in the armed forces. The Demon has him interested. He wants to see if the man lives up to the legend.”

Demon? I swallowed sour saliva. Four people outside of myself knew what I actually did in the military. The real stuff. Not the light-hearted fairy tales they put in the official reports. “How does he know about that?”

The man let out a monotone, robotic laugh and waved his hand. “Do you want the work or not?”

Everything about the short interaction sent my internal alarms blaring. Powerful. Secretive. Couldn’t and shouldn’t trust them. I swung my legs out from under the table to stand, but then I froze. My old squad mate Johnny had a saying about a man dying of thirst and somebody offering him water. I thought back to what brought me here in the first place.

After two weeks at Mom’s place, I started to lose my mind. The urge for violence wormed its way under my skin like maggots devouring a rotting corpse. I thought once I left the Navy Seals it would leave me, and for a time, it did. Seeing all the old furniture at Mom’s house must’ve reignited the flames.

In her living room, I laid on the beaten-down couch held together at the seams with duct tape. The once deep brown leather was now rough to the touch, scratched to all hell, and transformed to a light tan. Once a fine, expensive piece. Now barely holding on like Mom. I understood why she kept it. Always the sentimental woman.

When I first got here the place was a dump. A lifetime of maids left her ill-equipped for chores. Or maybe she lost the strength for it. Regardless, I did my best to clean the place. After I finished, the house stayed a dump, but at least it was a clean dump. Polished away dust filming the wood furniture. Threw away the fast-food bags littering the floor. I restored the room to as pristine of a condition as it could be, and it smelled of that oddly pleasurable artificial lemon scent from the aerosol cleaning spray. The only reminder of the mess from before were the stains on the white carpet. No matter how hard I scrubbed, they wouldn’t come out.

Moving out west to the mountains seemed like a good plan when I left the military—a fresh start would do anyone good—but after seeing what I did to Mom, knowing how I ruined her life from the moment I was born, I had to stay and make things right. She tried to conceal it from me, but I discovered a month remained to pay her overdue mortgage, or the bank would foreclose. Why did they want this heap of shit in East Cleveland? Who knows. My plan for a quiet life in the wilderness washed away like a sandcastle at high tide and was replaced with an image of Mom begging for scraps in the streets. The best laid plans of mice and men, I guess. Fuck you Steinbeck.

Besides, I could still leave—I would still leave. Spending some time in Cleveland to get Mom back on her feet couldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Only a delay. Not an end. But what if falling back into my old prison kept me here forever? Didn’t matter. Mom needed me. After the insurmountable suffering I inflicted on her, I could bear the personal costs. All I had to do was get to work.

Accessing my neural implant, I pulled up the internet browser, and it flashed in front of my eyes. Not really in front of my eyes. Really electrical signals my brain interpreted and used to create an augmented projection, but it appeared to be in front of my eyes, nonetheless. When I decided on sticking around here, I reached out to one of my old colleagues who left the soldier life and joined the mercenary life to show me how to find work.

A place for someone with my skillset existed in the deep recesses of the Dark Web. Social media for assassins was an absurd concept, but people needed money, and people needed people dead. The way of the world. I filled out my profile and thought about my different talents.

“I do assassinations, grand theft auto, torture, blowing up of buildings, drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, but I do not do human trafficking. Not my cup of tea.”

Seth Blank in all his glory for the seedy underbelly of the world to see. A hollow pit opened inside me when I reread my profile. Descriptions of destruction and violence summarized my life. So it goes. Fuck you too Vonnegut.

After a few weeks, a nameless associate of a man called Jeffrey Zuck, set up a meeting for a job.

I swiveled my legs back under the table and looked to the robot of a man sitting across from me. “What do I have to do, and how much does it pay?” I sighed.

His eyes glazed over, and message notifications flashed across my interface. “His name is Lenin Meinstroff.” I opened and read through the contents of the messages as he spoke. “North German-born scientist currently working in the physics department at Columbia University. He is in town this weekend for The Cleveland Art Museum’s Annual Summer Solstice Party on Saturday. Herr Meinstroff is a regular at the event, and he never misses a chance to see the antique arms and armor collection he loves. All we need you to do is bring us his head, and we will wire the money to your account.”

I looked at the image he sent of Meinstroff. Portly. Elderly. In his younger years he probably had a thick head of blonde hair, but now only white whisps covered the sides of his noggin. He seemed like any other stuffy old man. “What’s does he have in his neural implant that you want?”

The man’s face stayed rigid as if carved from stone. “You need to know that we want it. Nothing more.” The words were flat, emotionless, robotic.

How many times did my commanding officer tell me good soldiers don’t ask questions? “What’s the catch?”  Never was a good soldier. An effective one, but not a good one.

“No catch.”

“Just bring you the head?” I leaned back in and crossed my arms. “Doesn’t matter how? Witnesses? No witnesses? What? Why at the party?”

For the first time, the man showed signs of life. He raised his eyebrows. A faint trace of a grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. “We trust you can problem solve, and we want to see you problem solve. Anyone can sneak into a hotel and kill someone quietly in the night, but the party creates some… let’s say unusual challenges.”

I put two and two together. This wasn’t a one-off job. It was an interview. Bad idea. All of this. A terrible idea. That feeling crawled up my body. I dug my nails into my forearm and raked them across the skin. Dying of thirst. Water. “Give me half the money upfront.”

“We will not—”

“Do you want this job completed or not?” Hot air poured out of my nostrils. “I need resources. You obviously know what I’m capable of. You know if I tell you something will get done, then it gets done.”

A big toothy smile stretched across his face. The look in his eyes like a predator’s the moment before it rips apart its prey. I received another notification about a wire transfer to my bank account. These people didn’t mess around. “Your boss already knows my account numbers too, hmph.” No turning back now. “Send me the drop off location for the old man’s head.”

I found a hacker on the Dark Web and paid him, her, them, whomever—I had no clue who they were—to break into the museum’s mainframe and steal the blueprints for the building. Later, some shady motherfucker in a house even dumpier than Mom’s sold me a new sword with the serial numbers scratched off. I never had one with a retractable blade before. Fancy. Next, I paid some kids looking for a quick buck, to buy a high-powered laser pointer, black ski-mask, a few packs of plastic zip-ties, some duct tape, a small tracking device, a black bag, and portable strip of road spikes. If the cops ever investigated me, I’d prefer my purchasing history not be the smoking gun they were looking for.

Objective number one: kill the old man.

Objective number two: avoid prison.

Objective number three: get the money without dying.

No other objectives.

Most of the cash I received upfront went out the window, but it would be worth it if it helped me get the other half. If I wanted to get another job from this Mr. Zuck or anyone else, I couldn’t fail this one. I studied the blueprints until I knew the museum inside and out.

The day of the event came, and I performed my ritual. Mom turned a small sitting room into my bedroom. Occupying most of the space was a full-sized bed with a wash-faded, poorly stitched together comforter, and a stainless-steel clothes rack with all six articles of clothing I owned hanging from it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that this house was a tenth the size of our old one, but my bedroom here was ten times as large as the broom closet Dad kept me in. If he still lived, he’d be fuming to see me move up in the world. Then again, if he still lived, we wouldn’t be in this house.

I laid out my tools across the bed neat and orderly. Dragging my fingers over them one at a time, I closed my eyes and visualized the course of events to take place. My skin itched. I imagined finishing my task. Meinstroff’s head lopped off from his shoulders. I vented a long deep breath, opened my eyes, gathered up my gear, and left for the museum.

As ornately designed as the main entrance to the museum was, the freight entrance around back was equally as drab. Nothing more than a small, paved parking lot, and a brick wall with two dock doors, and another metal door atop a concrete set of steps. Fitting for the rich to enter the elaborate side while us working class folk are resigned to the mundane.

The late afternoon summer sun hung bright in the sky and cast a long shadow over the corner of the building. That was where I waited, hugged against the wall, decked in black from head to toe. A coiled snake waiting to strike.

A fleet of white vans pulled into the lot, and a mass of men and women in tuxedos clambered out. One hung back hitting a nicotine vape. Bingo.

Slowly. Silently. I crept toward him. My heart thrashed in my chest, but on the outside I showed no signs. Calm and collected, I grabbed him, and his throat pressed into the crook of my elbow. I dragged him out of the daylight. God I missed this. His body went limp—too shocked to even struggle—and I pushed his face into the red brick without any resistance. All the blood rushed from his skin, large beads of sweat covered his face, and his whole body trembled. I backed off, and he pressed his back against the wall. He slid to the ground with his unblinking wide eyes never leaving my masked face.

I pulled out one of the zip ties. “Take off your clothes.”

His bottom lip looked like an engine piston, and his head whipped side to side looking for help that wouldn’t come. I cupped his chin and pushed his lips together, forcing him to look at me. As much as I might’ve I hated it, I was in my element. Some people have a natural talent for such things.

“Strip. Now.”

Tears streamed down his cheeks. Quiet sounds like a creek trickling over rocks came from below him as the color of the pavement turned darker in a growing circle radiating from beneath his ass. I took two big sniffs and groaned. This fucking guy.

“Oh, God damn it,” I said. “Did you fucking piss yourself?”

“P-p-p-please… I’m not… I’m not even gay…”

I took a step back. “What are you—” I rubbed my face and sighed. “Don’t worry that’s not what’s happening here. I just need your clothes. Your sacred temple is safe. I’m not that brand of monster. Now, take them off. I won’t ask nicely again.” He didn’t move. I grabbed him by the hair and slammed the back of his head into the wall with a sick crunch. Pressing my face close to his, I bared my teeth. “Do what I tell you, or I’ll show you I’m worse than anything your feeble brain imagines.” The words came out of my mouth gravelly. Clearly achieving their intended purpose, he began to take off his tuxedo.

When he was down to his underwear, I bound his wrists and his ankles. I took one of his socks and shoved it down his throat then duct taped it shut. I grabbed his piss-soaked pants. I groaned. Some people. Some fucking people.

I dressed and started to walk to the entrance. Panicked mumbles came from the caterer. His body writhed and flopped.

“Stop your whining,” I said. “You’re going to be fine.” He would probably be fine.

I met with the rest of the serving staff and helped them get ready in the vast museum lobby where the main festivities would take place. Polished black granite three stories high held up the glass ceiling. The sun sent down slanting rays of light. Windowpanes ran crisscross above casting shadows that slithered across the gray stone floor. Dark and gothic. I couldn’t think of more fitting setting for the macabre events set to happen tonight.

The guests in their rich garments filed in. I grabbed a silver serving tray of champagne and bounced from foot to foot as I strutted through the masses of silks, fine cottons, lace, and any other expensive fabric the poors couldn’t afford. Whistling a jaunty tune, I scanned the crowd looking for Lenin Meinstroff, but it appeared he hadn’t arrived. As I passed, people wrinkled their noses evidently wondering why such a foul odor would curse their high-brow affair.

An older lioness of a woman in a blood-red painted-on dress picked a flute from my tray. “Thank you my dear,” she said before taking a sip. I smiled and nodded. She leaned in close and took a big whiff. “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

Her gray eyes narrowed to slits. Even I, the Seal Demon, wanted to run and hide from her glare. “Good luck tonight, Seth,” she said.

My hands jerked. I almost dropped the champagne but managed to pull myself together before it clattered to the floor. “How do you know my name?”

She scoffed and sauntered off.

All the scenarios and deductions went through my head in an instant. Who sent her and how she knew my name was obvious. Most likely working for Mr. Zuck and the robot. Why she was here. Less obvious. The two most probable scenarios were: they sent her here as a contingency plan in case I failed, or they would let their good little soldier boy do the heavy lifting and have her kill me after I finished the job. I prayed it was the first scenario.

I shifted my focus back to the task at hand. The target appeared strolling through the lobby with a grin on his face as he shook the hands of other partygoers. My interactions with the North Germans were few, but I always remembered them to be a somber bunch. Meinstroff was anything but. He was the life of the party. Everyone knew him, and he knew everyone.

He made rounds through the throngs of people. Joking and laughing. His deep, booming voice overwhelmed the music. I set down the tray at a nearby table with charcuterie, grabbed a few slices of prosciutto and a hunk of bleu cheese, popped it into my mouth, and approached the old man.

I bumped into him expecting him to stumble, but it was like walking into a statue. I nearly choked on the meat and cheese.

While I hacked up a lung, his big meaty claws the lapels of my jacket. “Are you alright?” he asked. What’s this guy’s deal? I bumped into him.

I coughed and a chunk of prosciutto flew out of my mouth. It landed in the drink of nearby man too busy to notice. Yucking it up with his date, who—by the look of her—he paid to be here. Whoops. “Yes, thank you,” I said, and put a hand on his shoulder. My fingers slipped a micro tracker in the collar of his shirt so deftly a professional magician would be proud. “Sorry about that.”

His old skin crinkled as he smiled. “No need to be sorry. No harm no foul.” Not yet. “I find myself being in the way of everyone nowadays.” He laughed, and I found it hard to resist laughing with him. Oh no. He patted me on the chest before going on his way.

What a charming old man. I couldn’t do this. One thing to kill people as a soldier in war. To bring down those who would cause harm to others. In a way, it was justice. Sadistic and cruel justice, but justice, nonetheless. This was wrong. This was murder. Senseless and terrible. I could find another way to help Mom. Maybe get an entry-level office job, or be a waiter, or something. It wouldn’t pull her out of debt or save the house, but it would be something. My fingers tightened and flexed turning my knuckles white. The urge and anger coursed through me like a flowing river. Dad’s words echoed in the back of my mind.

You’re useless. Useless. Nothing but a stain upon the world.

I closed my eyes. A long deep breath left me. Fuck off Dad.

I pulled up my tracking software in my interface, and overlaid the museum blueprints on top of it, creating a map of sorts which showed a little red dot representing Meinstroff.

A long hallway coming off the lobby led to the bathrooms. One security camera covered its entrance. I stood just out of its field of vision and pulled the laser-pointer out of my pocket. Almost invisible to the naked eye, a small green dot appeared on the lens. After counting to thirty seconds, I put the laser pointer away and walked to the restroom. Pulling up a timer in my interface, I set it to ten minutes. Ten minutes—I estimated—until whoever was watching the security footage would notice one of the hundreds went out and called the police. Ten minutes to complete my first job as a sword-for-hire. Ten minutes to step across the line and become a murderer. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hand. You can do this.

When the police watched the camera footage later, they wouldn’t see me enter the men’s room. If they looked hard enough, they could piece together the footage from all the other cameras and determine I was the odd man out, but with all the people here, the complexity of piecing together the puzzle, and the incompetence of the Cleveland Police Department I put the probability of that happening close to zero.

I entered one of the stalls with an air vent above it and changed back into my all-black attire. While unscrewing the grate, I kept an eye on the Mein-dot in the tracker. He made his way through the European Rennassiance collection and entered the Post-Impressionist exhibit. As I pulled myself into the HVAC system, I checked the timer. Seven minutes. Right on schedule.

With the summer heat outside, the air conditioning worked double time. Inside the vents was frigid as it pumped as much cold air as possible to keep the massive building brimming with people cool. The skin of my hands stuck to the sheet metal like the tongue of that kid from the ancient Christmas movie.

All of this might seem unnecessary, but if I left behind any trace leading his death back to myself or my employer, it would be what the cops needed to put me away or make the decision to kill me easy for this Mr. Zuck. I couldn’t help Mom from prison or the grave. Then again… she might be better off.

I crawled through the vents and stopped at a grate above Meinstroff who stared at a Van Gogh. Shoulders slumped. Chin wobbling. A different person than the one I bumped into a few moments before in the lobby. He let out a long sigh.

“Oh Vincent,” he said. “The weight of days was too dreadful for you. If only your brilliance didn’t force you to bite off more of the world than you could chew.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the tears from his face.

I angled my head to get a better look at the artwork. Something came over me. My skin burst into flames as I took in the broad brush strokes. Heartbeats felt like wardrums in my chest as the red and maroon colors of the painting entered my vision. Lost control as a memory of Dad’s Rembrandt flooded my mind.

I became known as The Demon for a reason. When the anger grew overwhelming, he came out from deep inside.  Savage. Brutal. Grotesque. I found myself watching him press his face against the grate. He took control of the body, and I became nothing more than a ghostly bystander watching from afar. His shoulders heaved with long deep breaths. Mouth dripping saliva as his eyes followed the target exit the room. I could have done this without him. I should have done this without him. The demon was not known for subtlety.

The timer showed five minutes. Plenty of time for me. For him… I had no idea. He thumped through the vents grunting.

The professor entered the antique arms and armor collection and admired a set of French rapiers even d’Argtanan would have thought to be too ornamental for combat. Various weaponry and armor used across time periods and countries filled the room. Mannequin knights lived inside glass boxes with all their weapons of war proudly displayed. Their ingenuity was something to marvel at.

Okay, now slowly take out the screws from—the demon thrashed against his steel cage wishing to break free. Teeth gnashing. Growling. Panting. Thud. Thud. Thud went his fists denting the slotted steel outwards. His knuckles bled. Meinstroff must’ve heard the noise—people in a two-mile radius could’ve heard the noise—as he looked up the moment the demon came crashing from the ceiling and through a display of eighteenth-century flintlock pistols. Not known for subtlety.

Shards of glass created a symphony of clinks as they showered the hardwood floor. I stood off in a corner as the demon rose. Small cuts dripped blood from the exposed skin on his arms. He brandished the sword, snapped out the blade, and flipped it on. Electricity hummed as the dull gray weapon turned bright orange. He approached the professor. I expected Meinstroff to run, but he planted his feet firm. Brave. Poor old man didn’t understand what he was dealing with. Still, he stood his ground. Stupid, but brave. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall checking the timer in my interface. One minute. Ahead of schedule, but it’s safe to say someone certainly called the cops after what just happened.

The demon licked his lips. Dragging the tip of the blade across the floor, it left a thin scorch mark behind him as it ambled toward the professor. Alarms blared. Bright white lights flashed. Partygoers screamed and ran. Security would be here soon, and the police would surround the place in about five minutes if I had to guess so I set a new timer. I hoped he wouldn’t play with his food.

Meinstroff raised his fists like a boxer before yelling, “Who sent you?”

The demon stopped and tilted his head. His black soulless eyes stared at Meinstroff through the holes of the ski mask. This thing that lived deep inside me wasn’t human. Nothing more than a force of pure destruction leaving blood along the path it walked. I fought it at first, but over time I accepted the fact that when it wanted out, there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it, and all I could do was sit back and let it “have fun.”

“Who sent you?” Meinstroff repeated his question, but this time not as boldly.

The demon jutted his jaw to the ceiling and cackled like a cackle of hyenas—yes, that’s the name a group of hyenas—before they tear into an antelope. My shoulders jerked and goosebumps pricked my skin. Even after hearing that sickening laugh a hundred times, it still scared the shit out of me.

He stepped toward the old man who remained firm. The only thing betraying his air of courage was the look of panic in his eyes. I had to give it to him, I’d seen bigger, stronger men run. When the demon reached Meinstroff, he opened his mouth wide and dragged his tongue across his teeth. Panting. Unblinking eyes wide open. Wanting to take in the carnage he would soon create. My stomach turned for I knew what was to come.

Meinstroff fist rocked the demon’s chin who in turn didn’t react save for a creepy smile. I tasted blood in my mouth. The old man hit him again and again, but he just stood there. Tittering to himself. It was funny because I would be the one who felt it in the morning, not him.

Meinstroff took in two short sniffs. “What’s that smell?”

In a flash, he was on the old man laughing like a lunatic while Meinstroff flailed and screamed. I hated the screams. Despite my best efforts to not listen, they were all I heard. Despite my best efforts to not watch, my eyes were glued to the predator and his prey. The demon throttled his throat and slammed the back of his head against the floor making a cracking noise so loud the remaining glass cases in the room shook, and he muffled the cries by sticking his hand in Meinstroff’s mouth. He squeezed. He wrenched. He pulled. And as the old man became more and more panicked, the demon’s arm inched and inched and inched back until his whole body jerked, and out came a bloody tongue. Rhythmic eruptions of blood spurted from his lips. Rivers of tears streamed from his eyes. I tried to look away, but I saw it. The demon ate the tongue. I wanted to hurl. Screams turned to shrieks. The laughter grew louder and more maniacal. I covered my ears with my hands.

Meinstroff batted at him feebly, and the demon dug his fingers underneath the skin on his cheek and ripped off a slice of it like it was turkey jerkey and popped it in his mouth. His metal lining showed for but a second before blood pooled inside the wound and ran down his cheek. My skin crawled. My stomach heaved. Disgusted to my core, but that itch… that feeling… nowhere to be found. Despite the gratuitous display before me, for the first time since coming home to Cleveland, I felt whole. And that was what I hated most of all.

I checked the timer. It was up.

Meinstroff passed out either from the pain or the shock—probably both. The screams ended, but the laughter continued when a lone security guard entered the room. Both the demon and I looked up.

He held an old timey flintlock pistol in shaking hands—that thing couldn’t possibly be loaded—trained on the demon who stood, rolled his shoulders, and stretched his neck from side to side.

His lumbering footsteps thumped on the hardwood. I imagined somewhere a mile away a family was eating dinner, and the water in their glasses rippled with every step. Blood started to coagulate around the mouth-hole of the ski mask. He licked his lips. Take the old man’s head and get out of here. He didn’t listen.

He broke into a sprint. The guard squeezed the trigger. A lead round left the barrel with a bang and ricocheted off the demon’s abdomen then smashed through a case of halberds. Blinding pain—aptly named—exploded from my gut as my vision went dark. Why the fuck was that even loaded?

I’d only been out for a few seconds, and when I came to, the guard still stood on the other end of the room fumbling for his sword. When I awoke the demon was gone, and all that was left was the useless son, the faux war hero, the killer for hire. Seth Blank. Alone again like most of my life. I spat out a hunk of Meinstroff’s cheek, pushed myself to my feet, and stood over his bleeding face. A warm trickle of blood seeped from my abdomen to my waistline. After venting a sigh, I closed my eyes. Sorry old man. If there was some other way to help Mom, I would do it. I raised the blade over my head.

The guard stood took a few steps toward me. I planned on avoiding killing anyone who didn’t need it, but if this moron wanted to be courageous, that was his problem, not mine. While turning to strike my eyes landed on his name tag. John. Fuck. It could have been anything but John. I’m not going to get into it, but killing a man with that name would have serious detrimental effects on my emotional well-being which was already shaky at best. His eyes were wide with fear, and his whole body shook. Not a fighting man. Or he could’ve been but seeing someone tear into another person with their bare hands and eat them could turn a fighting man into a frightened mess. I took a step.

“Stop right there!” he yelled.

I held my hands up with the hilt of my sword still in the right. He had a wedding band on his finger. “John,” I said as calm and even as I could. “I am highly trained, and highly effective.” Meinstroff choked on his blood and began coughing large gobs of it. “This man is as good as dead. Is throwing away your life something you really want to do? For what? A minimum wage job? A dying old man you’ve never met? Is it worth it? Just go home to your wife.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The place was empty of the party people. In a minute, cops would replace them. I hoped John made the correct decision before he forced me to make it for him. He slowly lowered his weapon. Smart man.

He jerked it back up. “How do I know you won’t hurt others?”

God damn it. “He is a North German spy sent here to spread fascist propaganda in order to gain sympathy for the Fifth Reich in America,” I lied so well, I believed it myself. “I’m here for him and only him. This is my job. I don’t get any perverse pleasure from hurting people. In fact. I hate it.” I flicked my tongue at a piece of Meinstroff stuck between my back molars. “Go home John. Just go home.”

Alarms blared. The blade trembled in his hand. It clattered to the ground, and he walked backwards out of the room without taking his eyes off me. He turned and bolted down the hall. I let out my held breath.

Smells of burning flesh filled the room as I decapitated the unconscious Meinstroff with the flick of a wrist. Job well done. Nothing to do but get out of here now. I threw the head into a black cloth bag and tied the strings shut. Scaling a nearby glass display with it tucked in my elbow like a football, I tossed it into the gaping hole in the ceiling left behind by the demon, and then jumped to it and pulled myself in. Shortly after entering, waves of pounding footsteps sounded off below me as police officers swarmed the room.

I crawled through the vents and worked my way to another grate in the parking garage attached to the building. The sun had set, and white overhead lights illuminated the center of the long concrete path while the space close to the walls remained in shadows. That was where I walked feeling sick to my stomach. Told myself it was the gash on my abdomen making me feel this way. I lied so well, I believed it. Flashing lights and sirens of squad cars in the distance grew brighter and louder when I exited the parking garage, so I turned down an unlit alley and disappeared into the darkness.

The drop site was a dilapidated, long-abandoned gas station about half a mile down the road from the museum. Milky moonlight bathed the sunken roof and boarded windows which provided shelter to the homeless inside. As the sickening feeling in my stomach grew, I knew I needed to continue focusing on the fact that if I didn’t do what I did tonight, Mom would soon be living somewhere like this. Since I was early, I took the time to make my preparations with the robot and his men. I leaned against one of the graffitied pieces of plywood and stared into Meinstroff’s dead eyes,

“What breakthrough in your research did you make that is so valuable?” I asked. He didn’t answer my question.

A black Ford SUV pulled up and out stepped the gaunt man in the well-tailored suit with gold-rimmed spectacles. I tossed him the head. Another man stepped out of the vehicle and put it into a plastic tote box and shoved it in the trunk.

“Excellent work,” the robot said. “Mr. Zuck will be most pleased.”

“Wire me my money so I can be on my way.”

He laughed and opened the door to the car. I knew they would try and stiff me on the second half of the payment. There’s always a catch. Catch-22. Fuck you too Heller.

A big grin stretched across my face as he climbed back into the car. I navigated my interface and hit a button.

As they tried to exit out of the parking, their back tires popped when they drove over the remote-controlled road spikes. A hiss of air escaping the rubber lasted for an eternity as the rear-end of the vehicle sank to the ground. I giggled. The robot and two of his goons left the vehicle. They started to charge me, and I whipped out my sword, but then the robot held up a hand, and they came to a halt.

He looked at me with an expression I could only describe as morbid curiosity. “You’re a brute, but you’re a clever brute I’ll give you that.” His eyes glazed over. I received notifications for the second half of my payment. Well, most of it.

“Where’s the rest?”

“I’m taking out the cost of a tow and new tires.”

Fair. Not happy about it. But fair.

A second identical SUV pulled up a few moments later, and he opened the door. He turned back to me. “I’ll be in touch about more work.”

Relief washed over me. The road spike trick was a calculated risk which could’ve gone one of two ways. Either it pissed them off, and they tried killing me, or it would continue to prove my resourcefulness. Glad it was the latter and not the former.

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“Bob. Bob Eckhardt.” He climbed into the car.

“What’s in Meinstroff’s chip you want so bad?”

Bob closed the door and rolled down the window. “Weapons don’t ask questions. Until next time.” The SUV disappeared down the road.

Sour sickness from my gut eroded that moment of satisfaction. Bob was right. Weapons don’t ask questions.

I left the drop sight and stopped at the kebob shop before heading home. Starving after a long day’s work.

As soon as I got back to Mom’s place, I took a shower. Hot water relaxed me and washed away all the blood. My muscles ached. I stepped out of the shower and wiped away the fog on the mirror. A hole in my abdomen revealed the metal underlining. I pulled the first-aid kit from the medicine cabinet and sewed up the wound. After collapsing into bed, sleep took me as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Mom woke me as she entered the house. I walked into the kitchen and saw her sitting with her face buried in her hands. Exhausted. Defeated. Broken beyond repair like Dad and me. The one thing the three of us had in common. My heart broke seeing her like this. I grabbed a plastic bag of lunchmeat ham from the fridge and sat next to her.

She wiped away her tears. “Did I wake you?” I nodded and stuffed my mouth. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s alright.” I mumbled through a mouthful. “How was work?”

“Good. A lot of regulars last night, and they’re always the biggest tippers.” She eyed me up and down and huffed. “You look like hell. Did you go out partying with some of your old friends?”

She knew well enough I never had friends. “Something like that.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re getting used to your life in Cleveland.” Mom put one hand on mine. She gave it a tight squeeze and stood. “I’m going to get some sleep. I have to be at the hospital in a couple of hours for my shift.”

I stopped eating and held her hand. “You can quit the job at the bar.”

She hesitated. Mom didn’t know that I was aware of the impending foreclosure. I could see the wheels turning in her brain as she tried to find the words. “Honey, I need that job. I—”

“No, you don’t. You don’t have to worry about overdue bills or mortgage payments anymore.” Her eyes bore into mine. For the first time in my life, I saw her relax.

“You got a job?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh, my sweet boy.” She hugged me and stroked the nape of my neck. I felt her tears land on my shoulders. I hadn’t cried since I was a child. Dad did a masterful job beating that out of me. But I thought a moment like this might make it happen. Nothing. Mom wept enough for the both of us. “My sweet, sweet, boy.”

I wondered if she would react the same way if she ever learned the truth. “You don’t have to worry anymore. I’ll take care of you.”

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Julius Fish 2025