Darko Cernovsek
Soul Of Vengeance
ON THE FREEWAY... FIVE MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT
A dark red, almost dried-blood red, 2011-vintage, heavily tuned Toyota Celica GT was tearing down the freeway at speeds that could at best be described as reckless, at worst outright suicidal, as a hissing howl of the insanely powerful twin-turbo, swapped flat six engine was drowning out the wind, as well as the engines of most other cars that the ludicrous machine was slaloming in between. Darkened-glass windows concealed any and all contours of whoever might have been driving the car.
Until the driver-side window suddenly lowered halfway down, and a gloved hand holding a gun poked out, aiming vaguely behind... in the direction of four pursuing police cruisers, hard at work to keep up with the perpetrator. Muzzle flashed repeatedly in the dark night, as seven shots whizzed through the air, four missing, one hitting a civilian vehicle caught in between in the headlight, making the driver wobble slightly before bringing it back under control, the other two catching the lead police vehicle, one ricocheting off the side of the hood, the other making a hole through the front windshield, catching the driving officer in the upper right arm, making him lose control of the car, from the sudden flash of pain.
That car swerved to the left, hitting a random civilian vehicle, careening off of it to hit another to the right, then entering an uncontrolled flat spin that ended outside the freeway, in a ditch, flipping sideways onto it's left side, and catching fire, as the two cops inside desperately scrambled to get out. The driver side one, the more badly wounded one, never had a chance, having only one working arm, as fire spread quickly. His partner got out just in time, before the car became a burning torch - the doomed one's scream echoing through the night.
A Hunter's Night... as the full moon shone down ominously on the ongoing drama on the freeway.
The three remaining cruisers continued their chase... but they were falling behind. Slowly but surely, as their police-issue V6's just couldn't keep up with the tuned-up beast ahead, clearly driven by a significantly better driver then any of the cops were, not to mention with superior handling to the bulky police cruisers.
"Unit Two, come in! COME IN!"
The burning blaze behind, off to the side, was the only answer.
"Dispatch, we've lost Unit Two! We're taking fire from the perp, and can't pin him down. Request a roadblock at the next exit!"
"10-4!"
Up ahead, the driver-side window rolled up again on the Celica, as it's unseen driver continued weaving the car between traffic with an expert hand, sustaining its breakneck speed without missing a beat. Nothing could be seen through the darkened windows. As the car flashed by another vehicle, it's headlights illuminated it's rear license plate briefly... a simple metal plate, breaking all regulations, sporting only one word, framed by a pair of pentagrams, in stylised font, between the car's twin double-barreled exhausts that flamed with every gear-shift:
AGONISER
***
THE ROADBLOCK OF FIERY DEATH
Six more police cruisers, plus an armoured car, were arrayed in a double-wall, blocking the next exit off the freeway, about 20 miles down, leading to a sleepy, small town off in the distance. They were determined not to allow this unknown madman, to make it to the town and potentially find a place to hide. Around the cars, a myriad of officers milled about, all geared up and sporting assault weapons, as they positioned themselves to aim down the freeway toward the direction they expected him to come from.
The comm chatter with the three pursuing cars, wasn't promising, however.
"Roadblock, we've lost visual with the perp! He's too damn fast!"
"Don't worry, he's got nowhere else to go! He has to come this way! And we've closed down the freeway past this exit."
A huge line of cars past the exit, growing larger by the moment, was evidence of that. The exit was the only way off the freeway, and further down, the freeway was indeed closing.
Minutes passed, as nerves frayed, the sweaty, shaking hands of the officers rigidly aiming their weapons down the freeway. Minutes that turned into a half dozen, as more civilian cars continued to pile up, past the exit, out of their expected line of fire with the perpetrator. Given the reports... this guy wouldn't go down quietly. They all knew what happened to Unit Two, by now. They knew the calibre of perpetrator they were dealing with.
But there was no sign of the blood-red, howling Celica GT. Just more panicked, bewildered civilians, piling up as instructed, past the exit. No car tried to make it down toward the roadblock.
Suddenly, one of the oncoming cars began to swerve toward the exit, instead of joining the growing lineup past it. Yet - it wasn't the car they were looking for. It wasn't blood red, it wasn't howling. Just a simple black sedan, with a weedy engine, a vague shape of a female driver at the wheel, visible through it's normal windows. It slowly approached, as the shaky hands aiming the guns tightened on the grips.
"PULL OVER; GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE; DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW!" - the megaphone echoed through the night.
The black sedan continued its leisurely approach. The spotlights now had a good chance to illuminate the face of the female driver. Her mouth was taped-up, but her eyes betrayed her terror, as she seemed to jerk and thrash in the driver's seat, almost as if she were restrained, somehow. Clearly she wasn't actually in control of the car, it was on cruise-control, programmed to take this exit.
Not that the nuances made much difference, to the firing line of half-freaked-out cops. Not that they could even see her that well, past the glare of her car's headlights.
"OUT THE VEHICLE; DOWN ON THE GROUND! RIGHT FUCKING NOW! DO IT!!!"
The female figure seemed to jerk and thrash more violently, but the car continued unabated. Once about 30 meters away from the roadblock, the police opened fire. Within half a second, the woman was turned into a bloody, perforated pulp of flesh and bone, as hundreds of rounds zipped through the cabin, the engine compartment, and the body of the car, turning it, very literally, into swiss cheese. Yet it continued rolling forward, with a now-dead engine and flat front tyres, still with enough speed to push a pair of cruisers inward, making the officers beside them scatter out of the way, before it stopped dead.
A split-second before it suddenly detonated, with a force of all the fuel left in it's tank, combined with two bricks of C4 in the trunk, wired to a remote trigger.
The explosion triggered a chain-reaction from several of the nearest cruisers, turning the entire roadblock into a pandemonium of fiery death. Body parts flying through the air. Men on fire, screaming in agony, those not lucky enough to be killed instantly. More fuel ignited, creating a ring of fire. More charred flesh, more death screams. Another explosion. And another.
Down the freeway in the background, headlights off, a shadowy, moonlit shape of the blood-hued Celica GT was now slowly rolling forward, taking the exit towards the burning inferno that was all that was left of the roadblock. Fires reflected in it's darkened windows, as it's powerful engine softly hissed, like a demon's breath.
Darkened windshield concealed a sadistic smirk, on the perpetrator's face. Light blue eyes blazing, a gloved hand setting the detonator, off to the side.
The car stopped. The headlights turned back on, illuminating the carnage ahead. The driver-side door opened, slowly. A tall, well-built, stately male figure stepped out, dressed in gray jeans, military boots, a brown leather jacket, and a garish red scarf around his neck. Face hidden under a theatre-mask, only his light blue eyes showing. A mop of shaggy blonde hair. Not giving the carnage a second look, he walked to his tuned beast's trunk, opening it, and pulling out a high-powered sniper rifle. He then climbed on the roof, lying prone, setting the sniper's tripod to rest on the trunk, and sighting down the way he just came, at the distant, but rapidly-approaching blue-and-red strobing flashes of the pursuing three cruisers.
He took his time, controlling his breathing, before he gently pulled the trigger, sending the first .338LM round downrange. The lead strobing light suddenly swerved-off, to the side. He sighted-in on the second one. Another slow, controlled squeeze of the trigger, coupled with a slow exhale. That light also veered off, coming to a stop.
The third light came to a stop on it's own, in the middle of the freeway.
That sadistic smirk widened, as he could see through the scope, the pair of officers, male and female, abandoning their vehicle, making a run for it, all pretence of doing their job, gone. Not rushing the next shot, the man slowly sighted on the nearer one, then gently squeezed the trigger again, coupled with a slow exhale. He was rewarded with the sight of that cop, suddenly stumbling face-down on the pavement, riving in pain, as she seemed to take it to her kidneys, likely making a bloody hash of them. He sighted to the other one, who only briefly turned to look at his downed partner, then continued to run in terror. To no avail. The next shot took him down, also not-immediately-lethally, but clearly disabling him, painfully.
Those two would keep, as the masked man shouldered the rifle, getting off the roof and putting it back in the trunk. Finally, he turned his attention to the fiery carnage down the road. Reaching into the car's cabin, he pulled out a sheathed, short curved machete.
Inhaling deeply of the charred flesh and the stench of death, the masked man moved among the shellshocked, burned, disoriented survivors, pinning down, then beheading, each and every officer still left alive, all eight of them. Some tried to resist. Some just shook uncontrollably. The rest, about two dozen, were strewn about in pieces, or in mangled, human-resembling, burned pulps, all over the area.
The last one, a badly burned, yet solidly built young woman, the entirety of the left side of her body covered in blistered burns as pieces of her uniform fused with flesh and skin, crawled away from him on all fours, her half-singed face a mirror of utter horror.
"N--no... p...please..." - she moaned.
Her shaking, burned hand tried to reach for her sidearm, but her pain was such, that she couldn't grip it properly, as it slid from her cramping fingers, clattering on the pavement. She scrabbled after it, before the masked man's booted foot came in a flash towards her chin, snapping her head back, breaking her jaw, and sending her sprawling on her back, on the pavement.
"Hate it when they beg. Pigs got no right to be beggin', anyway." - the masked face growled, with a strange drawl in his voice, before he stepped on her chest, and brought the machete down on her neck, beheading her as well, a spurt of blood ending on his boot.
***
A MACABRE RITUAL
Dipping a rag into the blood of his victims, the masked man then took the time to draw a large pentagram on the pavement, between his car and the burning roadblock. At each of the five points of it, he placed one of the heads, the three remaining ones piled in the centre of it. All the while, he murmured to himself, in a vaguely... singsong... tone, almost as if singing in a church choir. His hoarse tone carried, in the deathly-still air.
"Settin' the stage... layin' the foundations."
"Settin' the stage... layin' the foundations."
"Settin' the stage... layin' the foundations."
Then he unzipped his pants, and began relieving himself on the three heads in the middle, the spurt of his urine filling their gaping mouths and vacant eyes. In the near distance, speechless, terrified faces of the civilian onlookers were peeking behind their piled-up cars, watching in horror. He didn't pay them a second glance, as he kept singing, reaching one gloved hand into the pocket, to pull a cigarette and a lighter, the other still guiding his penis in drawing a urine pattern on the lifeless, bloody faces beneath him, an almost... dreamy... look entering his light blue eyes.
"Ohhh baby, baby blue... oh my baby blue."
"Ohhh baby, baby blue... oh my baby blue."
"Unholy Chaos, c'mon down, an' make m'dreams come true."
"Unholy Chaos, c'mon down, an' make m'dreams come true."
Once finished, he zipped his pants back up, burning cigarette between his lips as he pocketed the lighter, regarding his work briefly, slowly exhaling a cloying cloud of smoke, then paced, almost meditatively, back to the car. Reversing and making a three-point-turn, the blood-red Celica retraced its path back down the freeway, the hissing howl of it's engine literally the only sound, in the death-filled air, reeking with charred flesh, and the metallic tang of blood.
THE END
A dark red, almost dried-blood red, 2011-vintage, heavily tuned Toyota Celica GT was tearing down the freeway at speeds that could at best be described as reckless, at worst outright suicidal, as a hissing howl of the insanely powerful twin-turbo, swapped flat six engine was drowning out the wind, as well as the engines of most other cars that the ludicrous machine was slaloming in between. Darkened-glass windows concealed any and all contours of whoever might have been driving the car.
Until the driver-side window suddenly lowered halfway down, and a gloved hand holding a gun poked out, aiming vaguely behind... in the direction of four pursuing police cruisers, hard at work to keep up with the perpetrator. Muzzle flashed repeatedly in the dark night, as seven shots whizzed through the air, four missing, one hitting a civilian vehicle caught in between in the headlight, making the driver wobble slightly before bringing it back under control, the other two catching the lead police vehicle, one ricocheting off the side of the hood, the other making a hole through the front windshield, catching the driving officer in the upper right arm, making him lose control of the car, from the sudden flash of pain.
That car swerved to the left, hitting a random civilian vehicle, careening off of it to hit another to the right, then entering an uncontrolled flat spin that ended outside the freeway, in a ditch, flipping sideways onto it's left side, and catching fire, as the two cops inside desperately scrambled to get out. The driver side one, the more badly wounded one, never had a chance, having only one working arm, as fire spread quickly. His partner got out just in time, before the car became a burning torch - the doomed one's scream echoing through the night.
A Hunter's Night... as the full moon shone down ominously on the ongoing drama on the freeway.
The three remaining cruisers continued their chase... but they were falling behind. Slowly but surely, as their police-issue V6's just couldn't keep up with the tuned-up beast ahead, clearly driven by a significantly better driver then any of the cops were, not to mention with superior handling to the bulky police cruisers.
"Unit Two, come in! COME IN!"
The burning blaze behind, off to the side, was the only answer.
"Dispatch, we've lost Unit Two! We're taking fire from the perp, and can't pin him down. Request a roadblock at the next exit!"
"10-4!"
Up ahead, the driver-side window rolled up again on the Celica, as it's unseen driver continued weaving the car between traffic with an expert hand, sustaining its breakneck speed without missing a beat. Nothing could be seen through the darkened windows. As the car flashed by another vehicle, it's headlights illuminated it's rear license plate briefly... a simple metal plate, breaking all regulations, sporting only one word, framed by a pair of pentagrams, in stylised font, between the car's twin double-barreled exhausts that flamed with every gear-shift:
AGONISER
***
THE ROADBLOCK OF FIERY DEATH
Six more police cruisers, plus an armoured car, were arrayed in a double-wall, blocking the next exit off the freeway, about 20 miles down, leading to a sleepy, small town off in the distance. They were determined not to allow this unknown madman, to make it to the town and potentially find a place to hide. Around the cars, a myriad of officers milled about, all geared up and sporting assault weapons, as they positioned themselves to aim down the freeway toward the direction they expected him to come from.
The comm chatter with the three pursuing cars, wasn't promising, however.
"Roadblock, we've lost visual with the perp! He's too damn fast!"
"Don't worry, he's got nowhere else to go! He has to come this way! And we've closed down the freeway past this exit."
A huge line of cars past the exit, growing larger by the moment, was evidence of that. The exit was the only way off the freeway, and further down, the freeway was indeed closing.
Minutes passed, as nerves frayed, the sweaty, shaking hands of the officers rigidly aiming their weapons down the freeway. Minutes that turned into a half dozen, as more civilian cars continued to pile up, past the exit, out of their expected line of fire with the perpetrator. Given the reports... this guy wouldn't go down quietly. They all knew what happened to Unit Two, by now. They knew the calibre of perpetrator they were dealing with.
But there was no sign of the blood-red, howling Celica GT. Just more panicked, bewildered civilians, piling up as instructed, past the exit. No car tried to make it down toward the roadblock.
Suddenly, one of the oncoming cars began to swerve toward the exit, instead of joining the growing lineup past it. Yet - it wasn't the car they were looking for. It wasn't blood red, it wasn't howling. Just a simple black sedan, with a weedy engine, a vague shape of a female driver at the wheel, visible through it's normal windows. It slowly approached, as the shaky hands aiming the guns tightened on the grips.
"PULL OVER; GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE; DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW!" - the megaphone echoed through the night.
The black sedan continued its leisurely approach. The spotlights now had a good chance to illuminate the face of the female driver. Her mouth was taped-up, but her eyes betrayed her terror, as she seemed to jerk and thrash in the driver's seat, almost as if she were restrained, somehow. Clearly she wasn't actually in control of the car, it was on cruise-control, programmed to take this exit.
Not that the nuances made much difference, to the firing line of half-freaked-out cops. Not that they could even see her that well, past the glare of her car's headlights.
"OUT THE VEHICLE; DOWN ON THE GROUND! RIGHT FUCKING NOW! DO IT!!!"
The female figure seemed to jerk and thrash more violently, but the car continued unabated. Once about 30 meters away from the roadblock, the police opened fire. Within half a second, the woman was turned into a bloody, perforated pulp of flesh and bone, as hundreds of rounds zipped through the cabin, the engine compartment, and the body of the car, turning it, very literally, into swiss cheese. Yet it continued rolling forward, with a now-dead engine and flat front tyres, still with enough speed to push a pair of cruisers inward, making the officers beside them scatter out of the way, before it stopped dead.
A split-second before it suddenly detonated, with a force of all the fuel left in it's tank, combined with two bricks of C4 in the trunk, wired to a remote trigger.
The explosion triggered a chain-reaction from several of the nearest cruisers, turning the entire roadblock into a pandemonium of fiery death. Body parts flying through the air. Men on fire, screaming in agony, those not lucky enough to be killed instantly. More fuel ignited, creating a ring of fire. More charred flesh, more death screams. Another explosion. And another.
Down the freeway in the background, headlights off, a shadowy, moonlit shape of the blood-hued Celica GT was now slowly rolling forward, taking the exit towards the burning inferno that was all that was left of the roadblock. Fires reflected in it's darkened windows, as it's powerful engine softly hissed, like a demon's breath.
Darkened windshield concealed a sadistic smirk, on the perpetrator's face. Light blue eyes blazing, a gloved hand setting the detonator, off to the side.
The car stopped. The headlights turned back on, illuminating the carnage ahead. The driver-side door opened, slowly. A tall, well-built, stately male figure stepped out, dressed in gray jeans, military boots, a brown leather jacket, and a garish red scarf around his neck. Face hidden under a theatre-mask, only his light blue eyes showing. A mop of shaggy blonde hair. Not giving the carnage a second look, he walked to his tuned beast's trunk, opening it, and pulling out a high-powered sniper rifle. He then climbed on the roof, lying prone, setting the sniper's tripod to rest on the trunk, and sighting down the way he just came, at the distant, but rapidly-approaching blue-and-red strobing flashes of the pursuing three cruisers.
He took his time, controlling his breathing, before he gently pulled the trigger, sending the first .338LM round downrange. The lead strobing light suddenly swerved-off, to the side. He sighted-in on the second one. Another slow, controlled squeeze of the trigger, coupled with a slow exhale. That light also veered off, coming to a stop.
The third light came to a stop on it's own, in the middle of the freeway.
That sadistic smirk widened, as he could see through the scope, the pair of officers, male and female, abandoning their vehicle, making a run for it, all pretence of doing their job, gone. Not rushing the next shot, the man slowly sighted on the nearer one, then gently squeezed the trigger again, coupled with a slow exhale. He was rewarded with the sight of that cop, suddenly stumbling face-down on the pavement, riving in pain, as she seemed to take it to her kidneys, likely making a bloody hash of them. He sighted to the other one, who only briefly turned to look at his downed partner, then continued to run in terror. To no avail. The next shot took him down, also not-immediately-lethally, but clearly disabling him, painfully.
Those two would keep, as the masked man shouldered the rifle, getting off the roof and putting it back in the trunk. Finally, he turned his attention to the fiery carnage down the road. Reaching into the car's cabin, he pulled out a sheathed, short curved machete.
Inhaling deeply of the charred flesh and the stench of death, the masked man moved among the shellshocked, burned, disoriented survivors, pinning down, then beheading, each and every officer still left alive, all eight of them. Some tried to resist. Some just shook uncontrollably. The rest, about two dozen, were strewn about in pieces, or in mangled, human-resembling, burned pulps, all over the area.
The last one, a badly burned, yet solidly built young woman, the entirety of the left side of her body covered in blistered burns as pieces of her uniform fused with flesh and skin, crawled away from him on all fours, her half-singed face a mirror of utter horror.
"N--no... p...please..." - she moaned.
Her shaking, burned hand tried to reach for her sidearm, but her pain was such, that she couldn't grip it properly, as it slid from her cramping fingers, clattering on the pavement. She scrabbled after it, before the masked man's booted foot came in a flash towards her chin, snapping her head back, breaking her jaw, and sending her sprawling on her back, on the pavement.
"Hate it when they beg. Pigs got no right to be beggin', anyway." - the masked face growled, with a strange drawl in his voice, before he stepped on her chest, and brought the machete down on her neck, beheading her as well, a spurt of blood ending on his boot.
***
A MACABRE RITUAL
Dipping a rag into the blood of his victims, the masked man then took the time to draw a large pentagram on the pavement, between his car and the burning roadblock. At each of the five points of it, he placed one of the heads, the three remaining ones piled in the centre of it. All the while, he murmured to himself, in a vaguely... singsong... tone, almost as if singing in a church choir. His hoarse tone carried, in the deathly-still air.
"Settin' the stage... layin' the foundations."
"Settin' the stage... layin' the foundations."
"Settin' the stage... layin' the foundations."
Then he unzipped his pants, and began relieving himself on the three heads in the middle, the spurt of his urine filling their gaping mouths and vacant eyes. In the near distance, speechless, terrified faces of the civilian onlookers were peeking behind their piled-up cars, watching in horror. He didn't pay them a second glance, as he kept singing, reaching one gloved hand into the pocket, to pull a cigarette and a lighter, the other still guiding his penis in drawing a urine pattern on the lifeless, bloody faces beneath him, an almost... dreamy... look entering his light blue eyes.
"Ohhh baby, baby blue... oh my baby blue."
"Ohhh baby, baby blue... oh my baby blue."
"Unholy Chaos, c'mon down, an' make m'dreams come true."
"Unholy Chaos, c'mon down, an' make m'dreams come true."
Once finished, he zipped his pants back up, burning cigarette between his lips as he pocketed the lighter, regarding his work briefly, slowly exhaling a cloying cloud of smoke, then paced, almost meditatively, back to the car. Reversing and making a three-point-turn, the blood-red Celica retraced its path back down the freeway, the hissing howl of it's engine literally the only sound, in the death-filled air, reeking with charred flesh, and the metallic tang of blood.
THE END