NOVEL FROG 9: Not All Marks Are Created Equal
The elevator opened, I stepped out into the empty lobby and fell to the floor. The shrapnel in my leg hurt like a sonofabitch and it was making it difficult to walk. I extended my leg and gingerly plucked out each piece one by one. Most of them were in there so deeply that I had to jiggle them loose before yanking them out, and each time one was removed a fresh stream of blood would gush from my leg.
Still, I felt good, all things considered. Even with a dozen holes in my leg, I felt like I could move faster than I could before I came into this compound. The mark clearly gave me more than explosive snot rockets when it progressed further up my arm. It had affected my entire body. In an instant, I had gone from reasonably healthy to as fit as an athlete. It wasn’t just my muscles either: my lungs took in more air and my heart beat slower. Mickey must’ve experienced something similar, which is why he was able to dodge my glob so easily and grab my leg before I even had time to think.
But now we were on even ground — mostly. His bitch-like tendencies just made it easier for me to kick his ass in the long run.
I tore a strip of cotton off of the bottom of my shirt and wrapped it around my leg. With my do-it-yourself crop top and my ripped up jeans, covered in slime, I felt like a goddamn lunatic. There were no alarms down on this floor, only silence. In the dead silence, I thought about how absolutely insane this all was — that this was really happening to me. A week ago, I was living under a bridge drinking 40s, and now I was slaughtering my way through a drug den to have a wizard duel with Mickey. I looked at my hands, looked at my tattoo, and looked around the room; none of it felt real.
God, I hate silence.
“Any other assholes want to risk their lives to protect that bum you’re sheltering?!” I yelled. My voice echoed through the room and down the five hallways that surrounded the round lobby, but nobody responded. Of course. Why couldn’t they all just charge at me and get themselves killed like they do in the movies?
There were signs above each of the hallways: Manufacturing, Packaging, Training, Torture, and Executive Suites. I thought it would be an easy walk from there, just go down the Executive Suites hall and execute the motherfucker, but I should’ve known that nothing is ever easy. The place was a labyrinth of hallways that branched off on both sides, and those hallways had branches of their own. Fortunately, there was a map on the wall at the first fork in the hall. To get to the Executive Meeting Room, I just had to turn left, then turn left again, pass through the Executive Offices, and take a right.
I took the left and the other left and heard the faintest little pitter-patters behind me — just three little tap tap tap’s, barely audible. I moved to the side just in time to dodge the thrust of a jagged hunting knife. I turned around, and the sunken-eyed man who had come out of the van with Mickey stood in front of me. He thrusted his knife again, but I dodged it without issue.
“You’re one of the Futrells, right?” I said. He slashed at my face and I backed away a little.
“Look,” I continued, “can’t we just talk?” Another slash, another dodge. “I don’t have anything against you or your brother, alright? I don’t give a shit how many drugs you sell. Just let me talk to Mickey and I’ll be out of here.”
He didn’t respond. He just kept coming at me with his knife despite the fact that he clearly couldn’t hit me. He was fast, and clearly experienced with a knife, but it didn’t matter. Butchering a junky or a cop was one thing, butchering me was another. He swung the blade at me one more time, and I grabbed his wrist, sent slime up through his fingers, and slipped the knife out of his grasp.
“It’s like you want me to kill you, I swear to God,” I said. “Just walk away and I won’t roast you alive like I did to your cronies.”
But he chose to come at me with his fists instead. His sunken eyes were completely shrouded by darkness as he threw a flurry of jabs at my face. Just like the knife, I moved around them, no problem. But he wouldn’t stop. He never said a word, just attacked me like a machine. I squirted one of his eyes with a finger gun, and he just squinted and continued to throw punches at me without slowing down. I squirted the other eye, and he came at me with his eyes closed. This guy was a fucking nut.
“Collum! Stop! It ain’t worth it!”
The shorter man from the van huffed and puffed his way down the hall, shouting between gasps for air. The sunken eyed man turned around, though he still couldn’t open his eyes.
“He fuckin’ ruined everything!” he said. “Our whole business is fucked if he rampages down here like he did up there! I ain’t lettin’ that happen, Freddy.”
Freddy Futrell finally made it to where Collum and I were standing. His face was bright red and he put his hands on his knees while he caught his breath.
“I won’t kill anyone but Mickey if you just let me go to him. You survived without him before. Do it again,” I said.
Collum threw another punch at me. This time, I slimed his feet and he fell over. I stepped on his chest and he punched at my calf, but there was no real force behind it. Freddy looked up at me from his crouched position.
“You’ll destroy the whole compound if you fight out here. Half the first floor is fucked already just from one of you guys,” he said breathlessly.
“That was from your little meth head lieutenant chucking explosives all over the place. If you have a problem with that, take it up with him, though you’re gonna need a Ouija board for that.”
“You really leave us alone if we bring you to Mickey?” Freddy said. “Collum, chill the fuck out. Seriously. It’s embarrassing.”
Collum ignored him and continued to punch me in the calf. I kicked him in the ribs and he stopped for a second, but it only seemed to ignite his passion for fighting this losing fight, and his blows soon continued with more gusto than before.
“It’s fine,” I said. “He can tucker himself out if he wants. But to answer your question: yes, that is what I’ve been screaming down your goddamn halls this entire time. I don’t give half a rat turd about you guys. Walk away, and I’ll try not to completely destroy your meeting room with Mickey’s face. Alright? Sound good?”
“Yeah… alright. We’ll do that. I don’t want any more of our guys torched,” Freddy said. “Come on, Collum. Get up and be a good boy. We can rebuild our operation from here, I promise. Let’s just get out of here while we can.”
Collum finally stopped. He made no noise, but his chest was heaving up and down. I took my foot off of his chest and he got up. He opened the narrowest of slits in his eyes to glare at me. His eyes were so red from the slime that they almost glowed through the shadow of his deep eye sockets. He turned and walked away with Freddy.
“It won’t be so bad, I promise,” Freddy continued saying to Collum. “We’ll get some new goons, and smooth over the floors, and —”
Mickey met them at the end of the hall and grabbed both of them by the neck. They popped like jelly filled balloons, their insides painting the hall red. A sheet of Freddy’s skin slapped against the wall and hung there like a painting, and mounds of organ and bone collected in the corner. Mickey wiped blood and brain matter off of his face and flicked it onto the floor.
Holy shit. Not all marks are created equal, I guess. We were at the same level of progression now, but Mickey seemed so much more powerful. He could turn a man into a pile of mush with a single touch. How was I supposed to kill this guy?
Mickey had a look of pure satisfaction on his face because of the look of horror on mine. It felt like he was taunting me. I shot a blast of slime at his head. It came at him like a cannonball, but I was too far away and he sidestepped it without diverting his eyes away from mine.
“I’m gonna go take a shower,” Mickey said. “Go sit in the Executive Meeting Room. It’s just down the hall. I’ll be there in a minute.”