Wednesday 4 December 2013

500 Words: Tales from the City: Red mist

I’d always wanted to join the Force.  Ever since I’d had to try and stand bullies down on my own.  I saw those smart guys, in pairs or larger groups, and knew that was where my future lay.  I wound up in training and that’s where it all began. 

I’d always been a weedy little fuck, hence the bullying, and that didn’t change.  I could barely manage the assault courses, couldn’t fire anywhere near accurately.  It seemed I was destined for a desk job.

Until one strange afternoon, for some reason, I closed my eyes before firing on the range- figured I couldn’t get any worse.  Instead something real weird happened.  It was like I became someone else and I put a whole clip through the centre of the target. 

I had to quickly pretend I’d been putting in a lot of secret after-hours practice.  (Some shit about tin cans with my uncle’s pistol, I think).  The same on the assault course.

I couldn’t explain it- every time I closed my eyes I became this kind of super man, every sense becoming more acute, every movement becoming no longer that of a clumsy idiot but that of a lithe athlete or something.  Everything just clicked into place because I could see better with eyes closed. 

Once on the streets all the filth and the grime the city was covered in started to rile me as never before now it was down to me to clean it up.  A few months in, me and my partner came across a gang raping some poor young woman in an alley.  We called to them to stop.  They pulled guns on us.  Quick as a flash I closed my eyes and blew every head away.

Over time similar incidents occurred- once I even entered a building and rescued a hostage with my eyes closed, dodging bullets and taking out several gangsters.  Apparently such skill is considered weird, though, and my partner, then the rest of the Force, started to look at me funny, stopped talking when I entered the room, and looked at me with fear in their eyes. 

And soon I was alone again.  Sort of.  I could always close my eyes and see a field of red that seemed to make more sense or make things easier than in the real world.  I started to walk the streets at night, cleaning-up any mess I came across: drug dealers, gangs, prostitutes and their pimps- even a bent Forceman or two.

And it became addictive, this second life.  I got transferred (due to spreading poor morale) behind a desk during the day and fought crime at night, getting all the power and none of the paperwork.

My life was great.  Until Homicide started sniffing about and I began to see the grime on my own hands, the shit embedded deep under my fingernails.

They interviewed me.  And they knew.

Until the army came to call I didn’t know what I was going to do.


Note: I originally tried to make this a two part 250 Words story but failed - I think one half was always going to be too long, the other too short, and it probably works better this way anyway.  Also: I wrote it before I knew anything about Kick-Ass - I can remember being pretty annoyed when I saw the trailer and discovered another Red Mist out there.

No comments:

Post a Comment