Boy and Blade

Three thirteen a.m.

  Proper planning paid off. Boy slithered in through the unsecured window, two windowpanes to the right of the back door. Boy had snuck into the Goldbergs' home while mowing the neighbor's yard and unlocked this window.

  "See, I told you that no one ever checks the windows," Blade growled, 

  "Hush, you're goin to wreck this," Boy admonished Blade. Boy pauses to listen for any rustling. Nothing. The piebald cat was the only creature that stirred. She rubbed her head against Boy's right leg as he entered the kitchen, then gave out a long, loud meow to Boy in frustration because he did not pet her.

  Boy flinched and tried to shew away the cat while listening to see if anyone in the home was disturbed by the cat's bellowing for affection while frantically giving the cat rubs behind her left ear.

  "We should kill the cat!"

  "Cheese and rice, keep your voice down, Blade," Boy hissed, "and no, we don't harm animals, remember?"

  "I came here to do my business," said Blade in a manner of fact manner. 

  "I know; let's get this done. You are always so eager, no animals. Never ever."

  "Fine, but it's in my nature to bleed meat." Blade hissed.

  Boy scooped the cat up, threw her into the backyard and muggy summer night air, and then closed the window. He almost locked the small kitchen window out of habit. He thought of the irony that he would be locking it to protect it from intruders and gave a quiet laugh to himself.

  "What's so funny?"

  "I'll tell you later," Boy replied.

  Outside, the cat jumped to the windowsill, tried to balance on the edge of the brick, and began demanding to be let back into her home. 

  "Told ya we should've killed the creature," Blade said in a smart-ass 'I told you so' sort of way.

 Boy ignored him. He loved animals, especially cats. As a matter of fact, Boy's YouTube history was filled with funny cat videos. In school, his fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Kreech, had given him lunch and after-school detentions and took his phone for laughing out loud while watching those videos in class. Boy loved cats for their personalities and that they have retained their propensity to be killers.

  Mrs. Kreech had sent notes home via the mail a few times, but Boy smartly intercepted those letters and forged his mother's signature; besides, she was usually smacked out of her mind on meth, not home, or arguing with one of the many boyfriends that came in and out of the front door like a winter wind on the West Texas plains.

  Boy and Blade continued shadows in the shadows, tiptoeing through the living room and past the brown faux leather coaches that bore holes from cigarette cherries falling on them. The whole house stank of stale cigarette smoke and old beer.

  Then he heard a distant door shut. A remote dog barked, and then another mongrel joined in. Close by. The duo went to the large living room window to peer through the blinds, curious about the commotion.

   "Be careful not to create a silhouette at the window or to rustle the blinds," Blade cautioned.

  "Silly-what?"

  "You should read more books and lay off the video surfing, Boy," Blade scolded, "Your shadow, in other words, don't let anyone see that you are peeking out."

   "Ah, you could've said that," Boy gave Blade a glare. Blade was a good friend to Boy but would often chide him for not regarding his education. Blade meant well, Boy knew.

  Across the street, an older man and his little, black-wired hair terrier were up and tending to the lawn watering. The old man was telling his dog to hush while trying to hold his leash and a beer with one hand, and in the other, he held a garden hose sprayer.

  “Geez, old dude is up early to water his yard," whispered Boy. "He should buy an auto-sprinkler."

  “Gives him purpose. Somedays, it’s the mundane nuances of life that we do automatically that keep us the most grounded,” Blade opined. "Right, speaking of purpose. We have work here, and it won’t stay dark forever.”

  “Yes, okay,” said Boy. They skulked back into the shadows—a comical pair, Boy so small and Blade so big. They passed a showcase stand containing tiny handbells representing every American territory.

  “Tacky," commented Blade. Boy nodded his head in agreement.

  The pair stalked to the first to the right door; it was pink with multiple reflective unicorn stickers pealing from the painted wood due to age. Boy knew who was beyond the threshold of this faded pink door. Chealse. When he wasn't watching cat videos, he would often stare at her, and that's what caught his attention about the detail of her life she tried to hide away. Boy had found the courage to speak with Chealse on the bus about what he noticed.

  “Let’s save her for last,” said Blade, the voice of a dingo learning how to whisper.

  "No, I told you already Chealse is not to be touched."

  "Fine."

 The duo came to the next door—the red door to the left, ten feet from the unicorn door. Ten more feet to the big white main bedroom door that belonged to the master bedroom.

  Boy and Blade stopped in front of the red door. The one with the Texas Rangers MLB felt pennant secured firmly to the Texas Ranger's red door. Boy pulled a small mist bottle from his right pocket. It was filled with

canola oil, misting the door's hinges with pungent oil. After thirty seconds and one more coat of the off-brand canola oil, the door hinges made no sound, and the pair entered the room. Their shadows stalked behind them on the walls as they came to their prey.

  The slugger, Jimmy Goldberg, was tucked in safely under his Texas Rangers bedding.

Boy despised the kid. Jimmy, or Jimmy the G, as he liked to call himself, lay in his bed like an innocent and normal kid of any town in the USA, but Boy knew better of the bully.

  Jimmy the G got his rocks off on tormenting anyone smaller than him, girl, Boy, friend, foe, or even little sister; his want to bully was an equal opportunity employer. It did help that Jimmy the G was big for his age and lived by the motto of 'his might makes right.'

  Boy and Blade stood over Jimmy the G. Boy held a murderous glint in his eyes, and a small smile began on the left side of his lips.

  “Okay, pull the blanket back," Blade instructed Boy, and Boy complied with the request, his tiny pale left hand shaking just a bit.

  "Steady," Blade coached, his voice rasping in excitement. Blade watched the slugger’s right carotid artery rhythmic pulse in his thick neck.                   

  Blade could wait no longer; the first stroke was heavy and stiff. The slugger flopped around like a fish thrown to the deck of a boat, blood sprayed heavily, and Jimmy the G's eyes wide, his hands reached for the new gill slit in his neck. Boy and Blade then began quick, stiff jabs further into the bully's wounded neck, shredding it into bloody ribbons of flesh. Jimmy the G stopped moving, and a single tear drop formed in his left eye before it turned up, and he stopped moving.

  "Babe!"

  Boy and Blade heard a woman's voice coming from down the hall, muffled by the door the owner of that voice was behind.

  A man gave a gruffed response, but neither Boy nor Blade could determine what the male voice said. 

  " Wake up, I think Jimmy rolled off his bed again," the woman said. Boy's heart began to thump in alarm.

  “He ain’t that fuckin stupid, Hailey. He’ll get back up on his bed,” the man said, annoyed to have been woken up.

  “What if the blanket is wrapped around his neck,” Hailey pleaded.

  “What the fuck if I die tomorrow at work because I didn’t get enough sleep after working a twelve-hour shift," the husband responded with a snap. 

  “Fuck it, I’ll get my pregnant ass up and go check on him,” Hailey threw up their comforter and sheets in dramatic flair, ensuring his ass was uncovered.

  “Fine, Hailey, fuck, I’ll go," the man barked. He sat for a second, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He reached for his prescription glasses, "Fuck," he muttered

 again and then a slur of words that neither Boy nor Blade could understand.

  "Thanks," came a sarcastic reply from the woman.

  The man stumbled to the door, still groggy from being woken up way too early, and he could feel the

makings of a hangover starting to kick in. As he opened the door, he contemplated calling in from work today. Still, he'd already been written up by his supervisor for his poor attendance record. Work tended to interfere with a good day of drinking.

  Blade and Boy prepared for the man to come to them.

  The man opened the door and peered in. Seeing Jimmy on the bed, he growled, "The fuck you doin' in here waking me up this time of the morning?" Jimmy didn't reply. The man walked closer to the bed. Boy and Blade hid in the darkest shadows of the new tomb between the

man and Jimmy's corpse. The man bent over Jimmy, and the realization that Jimmy was dead, no, not dead, that was too kind of a word to use as he looked upon his son. Jimmy had been brutalized, and at that moment, he thought, why Jimmy and not Chealse instead? The man stood in shock, then shook his head, trying to regain his sense. He reached a hand to Jimmy.

  Boy and Blade sprang from the shadows with a vampire craving for blood. Blade stabbed the man in his heart. The man's fat jowls shook in disbelief as he stared at the duo who just pierced his heart. The man stumbled back against the bedroom wall in a stop-action, slow-motion manner. His glasses slid down his nose, and his eyes bulged as he tried to gasp for air. Blade drove himself deep into the man's right eye. The man gave a long, deep groan, and his head fell forward.

  Boy looked at the man and said, "You won't do it ever again."

  "Well done, Boy," Blade complimented.

  "I am still new to this, but I think the world could be better without him," Boy replied.

  "You did good work."

  Boy and Blade came back out of Jimmy's room into the hall. The door to the main bedroom opened now, and they walked in.

  "Now, the mother."

  "No, I don't want Chealse to be motherless, and she said that her mother didn't know what was happening to her."

  Blade rolled his eyes, "For a future serial killer, you have a big moral code."

  "Moral code?"

  "Never mind, I'll explain later. Let's get out of here."

  "Josh," the woman's voice called from the master bedroom. "Josh, is everything okay?"

   Boy and Blade began to beat a retreat back to the unlocked window; so far, so good until Boy, but for the cat. The cat started screaming outside the front door, demanding to be let into her house.

  "Crap cakes that cat is going to give us away," Boy whinced.

  "Just get out of the window and let the cat situation sort itself."

  Then, the world stopped for them when three big knocks came at the front door.

  "Josh, someone's at the door. What is going on?"

  "Oh no," cried Boy.

  "It's okay. Just open the door, and I'll do the rest," reassured Blade.

  "We need to go. We've already pushed our luck."

  Blade wanted more blood but even knew when to calm the lust, "You're right, let's beat it."

  As they began climbing out the window to the backyard, the doorbell started to ring, and a light came on from down the hall. It felt to Boy like the whole world was watching him and was a witness to what Blade and he had done in the Devil's hours of the night. How would the world judge them? Would they be considered heroes or villains should they find out the 'why' for tonight's slaughter. That was contemplation for later escape was the order of the day.

  Boy peeked through the window back into the house and watched Chealse's mother waddling to the front door. She opened it, and the old man from across the street was holding the cat. They exchanged words, but Boy couldn't tell what they were saying.

  "We HAVE to go, Boy!"

  As they made their way through the backyard and past a dilapidated swing set, they heard the first screaming wail of the woman.

  "Cat's outta the bag, Boy, we need to hustle."

  "Yup!"

  Later that morning, as the two were having breakfast, Blade said, "You did well." Boy could see Blade's face glinting in the steel of his body. He gave Boy the look of a father proud of his son who had just hit his first home run.

  "Thanks!" Boy took a bite from his jalapeno and cheddar sausage kolache. The night's work had made him hungry. He smiled to himself.

  "What is it?"

  "I'm just happy Chealse will not be abused by her father and brother anymore." He looked in the living room where, on the old, worn-out sofa, a dumpster find special, his mother and some unknown boyfriend of hers were passed out, the needles still stuck into their arms.

  "How about two more, kiddo?"

  Boy picked Blade up from the table and approached the sofa.

                                                   Valentine Tarango Jr.

                                                       03-01-24