• Sunny Days

    This is a tale of a man who got sick of nothing being done to stop a problem. So he did something.

    It is a sunny day in Hemet, California. Richard Grant, a 25 year old young man wears grunge type clothes, jeans and tee-shirt, not because he thought it was cool,
    he liked being told he was cool. In fact he was just too lazy to want to do laundry. Richard lost the will to care a long time ago. He has lost a lot to other people’s drug
    use.
    He walks down Carl Street. Richard feels sick today, he walks through the ghetto.
    A sick little hell where children play with broken toys.
    Never knowing what a real father is, just a man who their Mother screws and then leaves. A place where there are no real men, just criminals and rats.
    And there is one more reason to burn this place to the ground, Richard thought as he sees a crying baby in front of a house all alone. He runs to the child, his long brown hair flies in and out of his vision. The child is about 18 months old. A girl. Richard is filled with rapid hate for the (so-called) mother of this baby girl. The house, where Richard is sure the baby’s mom was, was an old, long past its prime and with white paint chipping away. It was just the place to sell meth. Richard stomped his way up the steps of the meth den. His first thunders three times on the door almost sends door off its hinges.

    He got a reply. “Who the hell is at the door?” yells a voice on the other side of the door.

    “Richard Grant and I want to know whose baby this is?” he yells back.

    “What does it matter to you?” says the voice behind the door.
    Anger swelled within Richard. “What in the hell do you mean?” he says “You wouldn’t help a baby that is all alone in front of a meth den?”

    “Get away from my house before I smoke your a**.” says the voice behind the door in a plain tone.

    Richard thinks for a moment. “I could kill them all now.” He puts a hand on his 9mm. “However, they’ll probably all be killed in a police raid anyway, so why waste the bullets?”.

    “I’ll leave” says Richard. He stays with the baby till her mother shows up.

    The mother of the child rushes out of the decrypt house. “Thank you for staying with her.” She said while she makes her way to Richard.

    “Thank you?” Richard thought. She was lucky he didn’t kill her on the spot. This blonde haired meth rat b***h, who can’t take care of herself, let alone a child, thanked him. He was sick to his stomach. Richard turned around not saying anything to the woman. He just remembered her face and walked home.

    Memory


    Today Richard’s memories haunt him. The ghosts of his family there in his mind remind Richard of his loneliness. The baby girl that he kept company with had brought his little sister, Claire, who was lost when a car going 80 in a school zone jumped the curb and hit her. Richard was right behind her when it happened, one moment she was there. Then she was gone. It took a minute for Richard to register what happened. When he did, His heart broke. The driver probably got lit up before he started to drive then the speed kicked in while he was in the middle of the road and he floored it. After the driver ran Claire over he tried back up and drive away, but Richard, ripped the driver out of his car and threw him down to the street. Richard put his foot down into the face of the driver shattering his lower jaw and most of the front teeth. Richard then started to stomp on the man’s chest so hard you could hear his ribs brake from a block away. Cops were there in 4 minutes. Pulling Richard off the man was no easy task for them. Richard was taken to the police station, but when he was in the police car. He saw an officer carrying a small black plastic body bag away from behind the car that hit Claire. His heart shattered.

    When it hits again.


    Richard goes outside again. The twilight was another of the few thing that brings a little confront to Richard. “It’s getting dark, but there’s still about an hour of day light left so I’ll go for a walk.” Richard thinks. When he gets to Carl Street, he sees that woman and her baby across the street she was letting the baby run around her and she (of course) was not paying attention. Richard thinks to run across the street and slap the stupid out of that idiotic woman. He just keeps on walking. That is when a car going about 50 comes out of nowhere and goes past Richard, “It’s going to hit her.” The thought flashes in his head and by the time he looked back he sees the child get hit. He is thrown back to the feelings of the day he lost Claire. He could not bear to see anymore of this drama and runs from the scene as fast as he can. Richard is at his house before it is dark and he is exhausted physically and emotionally. Richard opened the door to his home and goes into his room and just passes out.

    Later that night.


    Richard walks through a door not seeing the text written on it. There is a long hallway with paths that spread in to all directions, each one had a door that led to another door, and the doors had choices printed on them. All lead to the same door at the end, it a black door and what was printed on it was. Death. Richard is on the straight path, the quickest path to the end. When he gets to the end, a red wolf appears and says “Do you know why you’re here?”

    “Because I have an over-active imagination?” he replies.

    “No, don’t be a smart-a**.” the red wolf says with a hit of annoyance on his voice.

    “Because I’m dead?”

    “No.”

    “You mind telling me?” Richard says with anger while he runs his figures through his hair.

    “You are here to make a choice for yourself, to fix a problem in your life.” says the Wolf.

    “That’s such bullshit. My life is fine.”

    “Is that so? Then why have you not had a normal human interaction since you were fifteen?”

    Richard thinks for a moment, then he says, Screw you, what do you know about human interaction?

    The Wolf says with fury heavy in his tone. “That is it, I am done with you.”

    Then Richard is swept away all of sudden and darkness fills his vision.
    He wakes up in a cold sweat. “It was a dream.” He says looking around his dark room and he reads his clock, “2:30 a.m., I’ll never get back to sleep.” And he is right.

    The next morning


    He did not get any more sleep last night which may have contributed to his course of thinking this day.
    It was another sunny day in Hemet, California. Right about now Richard steps out of the shower about to start get to ready for the day. He starts with a yawn he says “Ah, man.” After that dream last night he is feeling macabre for wanting to kill a bunch of druggies and reliving the worst part of his life. He thinks I’m just trying to save those poor bastards from them self’s. An egomaniacal idea he knew. However, that is just the way it is.

    The late morning


    After he gets out of the shower he notes that his home is a mess and if he is still alive later that day he would clean it. As he gets dressed to take care of day’s violent business he takes out of the bottom of the closet his Dad’s old shot gun, and grabs the 12 gauge shells. Then he carefully loads them into the chamber that was slick with gun cleaner, and then he cocks it. The mechanical sounds are a comfort to him. He goes to his dresser drawer and opens it and takes out his old man’s 9mm handgun and began to clean it. Richard thinks he would not need it anymore. (You don’t need much when you’re a pile of ash that was scattered in the wind decades ago.) Richard lost his father when a home invader set fire to their house after his family saw the invaders face, Richard supposed the invader thought it would not leave as evidence if he had shot us. That didn’t matter now. Richard put on his clothes and heads out side with the guns in a duffle bag and went to Carl Street.

    At the meth den


    Richard takes out the shot gun, cocks it, and goes up the stairs. He takes a moment to pray “Dear God, I’m about to do some cleaning. I was wondering if you could guide my heated lead Clorox to the hearts and heads of these sub-human meth addicts. Amen.” He raises his left foot pulls it back and sends it out with force knocking the door off its hinges. It slammed to the ground, and the meth-heads go into frenzy.
    “What?” One said. “It’s the cops.”
    Oh, how wrong you are. thought Richard. Before he starts to shoot he notes that this place had about ten meth rats scattering in all directions in this den. There is thrash all over the floor and blow-torches and pipes. Four twekers are running for the back door, he pulled the shot gun’s trigger, when the buck-shot exploded out of the barrel taking with it a wall of “BBs” that killed all four of them. He reared left and saw two going for the window. The second blast had the same affect killing the two. “That makes six” said Richard “where is the rest?” He looks down the hallway there was a door cracked open. He pulled the trigger again and the person behind the door fell out in font Richard it was the woman from yesterday she was dead. “I guess I did one good deed today, for that baby anyway.” said Richard. He looks in the room, there were the last three. It took two shells to kill the last three. The house reeked with blood. Richard put the shot-gun back in his duffle bag and he walks home.

    Later that night


    Richard hears on the news that the cops were looking for a mad gunmen, but not him particularly, which was good. He supposes no one ever talks to police in that neighborhood and they’re not going to start with him, which was really good. Richard didn’t know if he would stay in Hemet anymore, after you kill ten people you seem to get a new since of fear. He would leave soon.

    The New Outlook

    It has been two days since the shootout.
    Richard takes the duffel bag he used for the shooting and puts several clothing items in it. He takes a long look at his house. He begins with a sigh “This place was never really home.” He walks out of his house and locks the door behind him. The sun was bright just like every other day in Hemet. Richard suspects that the cops are starting to narrow their person of interest pool and he was near the top. He had seen police cars across the street from his house yesterday. He isn’t going to stick around for that bullshit. He walks.

    To be continued