Murdam counted seconds as he tipped heavy worktable over and crouched on the other side of it. He hadn’t heard the rifle fire, but he heard the supersonic crack of the bullet in midflight. A noise suppressor wouldn’t quiet the shooting, but it would obscure the source. After seven seconds, a burst of bullets cut through the corrugated metal walls of the workshop. Seven seconds to figure out the one armed lump of a human wasn’t their target, switch to full auto, and fire blindly into the side of the building. Another five seconds before the next volley. Murdam sat safely behind several inches of wood and sized up the situation.
The shooter may be a good shot, but not a genius, and he’s not using good tactics. He should have waited until the target was well out of the door. Murdam knew he wasn’t tailed. But he took Johnny’s car. The car was bugged. Led the sniper right to him.
Murdam could cut out the back of the workshop, away from the road into the swamp. That would lead him into bad terrain, with a sniper behind him with sparse cover, assuming there’s not a man already covering the back. There hasn’t been a third burst. He hasn’t got too much ammo to waste.
This would be a waiting game. The sniper waits for Murdam to make a move, or Murdam waits for the sniper to move in, or wait until dark to make a move.
Murdam had lost his patience for the day. The dead Burmese was on his side of the cover, as well as some chains. Two minutes later, the corpse flew through a window. Two rounds snapped through the wall nearby. The corpse hung upside-down, pantless, suspended by the ankles. Murdam pulled on the chains from behind cover of the worktable, yanking the dislocated legs in an obscene marionette.
It worked. He heard shouting in Burmese, accompanied by random shots through the workshop walls. The shouting got closer. Murdam kept working the chains. He heard a clatter, then different sounding shots, more screaming. He grabbed the axe and waited for a pause in the shots. Murdam burst through the workshop door. Another Burmese shooter, red-faced, reloading an automatic pistol. He locked eyes with Murdam, forgetting the clip in his hand.
The axe came down on the gun hand. Tendons snapped and knuckles broke. The gun fell to the floor. He ignored the wound and dove at Murdam, getting too close for the axe, hands around his throat. Murdam dropped the axe, and stared back, smiling, ignoring the choking hands. Then he grabbed the wounded hand and pulled the fingers apart like a wishbone, opening the existing wound and splitting the hand halfway to the wrist.
Murdam punched the Burmese in the gut, knocking the wind out of him, and pushed him to the ground. He picked up the axe and hacked at his knees, cutting tendons and smashing bone. He continued shouting defiantly in Burmese. Murdam found the empty rifle nearby on the ground. He collected that and the pistol and took them to the workshop.
Inside, he took the chains that held the corpse hanging out the window and pulled them taut. He secured them to the worktable legs and returned outside.
“Don’t suppose you speak English?”
“Fuck you, George Bush!”
Murdam cracked a laugh. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Fuck you!”
Murdam picked up the axe. “So, all you Burmese hit squads this close? Or was this one special.” He walked up to the corpse hanging upside down from the window. The wounded man kept screaming, crawling towards him. “Maybe you were in the military together? Maybe he’s your brother?” Murdam brought the axe down hard on the corpse’s crotch, He came down again, aiming for the damaged crease of his buttocks.
The screams were becoming cries. His eyes stared cold vengeance at Murdam as he approached.
“Hope you guys were close. Because you’re going to die choking in his asshole.” Murdam brought the axe down on his foot, half severing it. He swiveled the axe blade in his hand and brought the flat butt down on his shoulders and collar until he was convinced he couldn’t work his arms any more.
Murdam grabbed the man by the ankle and dragged him to the hanging corpse. He grabbed a fistful of hair and lifted him to the gaping red hole between the corpse’s legs. Murdam slammed the man’s head into the wound. He thrashed around as best he could with his broken limbs. Murdam kept him held down by the nape of the neck, and tried driving him in deeper with the butt of the axe.
It didn’t really work the way he wanted, but it got his face in ears deep. Between the blows and the suffocation, the Burmese stopped moving. Murdam swung the axe butt down with both hands, but that only pulled one of the corpse’s ankles loose from its chain.
Murdam had to ditch Johnny’s car and clear out the property. Someone had tracked him through the car, and Murdam wasn’t betting on it being the sniper. Chuck’s body, Chuck’s arm, the guns, a cooler, and any tool with blood on it went in the back of an old pickup with a cap over the bed. The Burmese went in the trunk of Johnny’s convertible. Murdam pulled down the sniper’s pants enough to pose the bodies in a 69.
Murdam splashed bleach over the blood stains inside the workshop before driving the truck down a path behind the houses. He left it behind some trees out of sight and jogged back. He slipped on the ski mask before driving Johnny’s car back out the dirt road.
Murdam didn’t see any vehicles parked along the way. The sniper had either hid it well or he was dropped off. When he turned on to the first paved road, a Civic parked on the shoulder started its engine. The car did a decent job of tailing, and Murdam lost sight of it a few times on his way back to downtown VC. He drove to his favorite vehicle dumping ground, the Southwoods Mall parking garage.
Built during the boom of the late 90s, Southwoods Mall was still the fourth largest mall in America by square feet. It now stood thirty percent occupied. The parking garage was free, mostly empty, and free of security. The cars he had ditched there were typically stolen before anyone thought of towing them.
While only four stories high, the garage was as long as the mall. Murdam wound his way through to a spot. He parked and popped the trunk. He left the lid slightly ajar and ducked behind a cement column. Five minutes later, the Civic pulled in behind the convertible. “Please don’t be Burmese,” Murdam said under his breath. A young Asian man got out of the car, leaving the engine running. “Fuck.”
The man checked over the seats of the convertible before he noticed the truck was open. Murdam rushed up behind him as he lifted the hood, the running motor of the Civic covering his footsteps. The Burmese froze for a second before Murdam slammed a forearm across his back, knocking him towards the corpses in the trunk. Murdam felt around the man’s belt until he reached a pistol in the front of his pants. He pulled it out, chambered a round, and shot his brains through his face onto his partners.
Murdam tipped the body into the trunk and slammed the hood. He hopped into the running Civic and drove off. The Southwoods Mall parking garage was also a place Murdam went to lose tails, as there were multiple exits along a four block stretch.
Murdam searched the car while he drove. There was a purse on the passenger floorboard, and the insurance card was for a Monica Winters. A parking sticker for a University Credit Union. Stolen, probably carjacked. Murdam parked the car at a meter downtown and walked two blocks to a private parking garage where he had a couple more cars stashed.
There were no tails on the way back to the swamps. He drove a back route and got the car stuck over a tree stump. He walked the rest of the way to the pickup he had hidden, which he drove deeper into the swamp to a portable wood chipper he had stashed. Murdam dragged Chuck's body and arm from the trunk and removed his shoes and jewelry. He took the ax from the truck and cut of his head, legs, and other arm.
Chuck's trunk was too large to fit in the wood chipper. Murdam dragged it several feet from the chipper and opened Chuck's shirt. He widened the hole in Chuck's chest with the ax, and cut a groove into his stomach. Scavengers would take care of the meat, and he could come back to take care of the bones.
Murdam brought the butt of the ax down on the jaw of Chuck's severed head until the jaw was in pieces. Murdam collected the teeth and put them in his pocket. He hit Chuck's skull with the axe butt a few more times to loosen up the bone before starting up the wood chipper. Rats rushed out from the swamp as Murdam fed the chipper, spraying red over Chuck's torso.
He wanted to go back to the workshop to clean up, but that location was compromised. He rubbed most of the blood off his hands onto his pants, and wiped some smudges from his face on his shirt. Murdam drove the truck back to the city, tossing single teeth and Chuck's shoes and jewelry out the window at one mile intervals.
He drove to a boarded up mechanic shop he owned in south VC. The contents of the cooler went into a freezer, and the bloody tools got tossed in a sink to be cleaned later. Murdam grabbed a spray hose and showered himself off over a drain in the cement floor. He removed the bloody clothes and put them in a pile to be incinerated later.
Murdam went through a mental checklist to see what couldn't wait until after a few hours’ sleep. Cleaning the tools and the truck could wait. If he's still being tracked, the garage was a defensible place as any, and cheaper to ditch if he needed to than his residential properties.
"Shit. Albert," he said out loud. Still chained up and alive. He can wait a few hours. There was a mattress and some gear in the old garage office. Murdam turned off most of the lights and turned on a ceiling fan. He tried to relax, letting the fan cool his wet skin. He had things to think about, and needed to clear his head.
Murdam unlocked a tool cabinet and produced a shotgun and a .45 pistol. He laid those next to the mattress. He activated the local alarm system, which would give off a siren if the windows or doors were disturbed. Somebody wants to kill him. He could try to find out whom, or just let him keep tossing Burmese at him. Murdam took a fifth of scotch from the desk in the reception area and took it to the mattress. He pulled on the bottle with his left hand, and pulled on his cock with his right, remembering arms, throats, and red Burmese holes, until he jerked himself off to sleep.