Rustic Rain – Remastered

I re-wrote one of my early pieces because I loved it so much, and I wanted it to more accurately reflect my writing style and current ability. It was also plagued with errors which have (I think) been rectified. It is still very dark and gorey, but hey ho.

Rustic Rain

He sat on the lonely rock, charred black, drenched by the rain, by the pouring sapphire bullets that shattered against the muddy earth. Dark tendrils swirled above, threatening to reach down and drag him into the afterlife for what e had done, it seemed that in the end, revenge was not a dish best served cold. It was best not served at all. Behind him, deep down in that mine lay the bodies of men Corpses. Animals he had slaughtered with surgical precision, wolves that had taken the boys from his village all those years ago.

~

Gun clutched in one hand, rain droplets slid down his wrist and over the screaming darkness within the Glock’s slide. The rain slid over the muzzle, into the barrel, around the ejection port. Gold rounds in the chamber were left bone dry, lethal, awaiting enlistment. The magazine – a queue of death, with vengeance painted onto each and every lead tip. The thunder that cracked overhead lit up the entrance to the mine, a hole in the wall that led down, down, deep into the earth’s stomach, where only demons rest.

~

Of course, none of the boys survived. It’s only in the movies where the hero saves them all. Either they were caught in the crossfire, or executed to before his eyes, or were just killed in their attempts to escape. The whole plan had been worthless, pointless, and more detrimental to the boys than leaving them to slave away forever… Maybe death was better than working down there. He couldn’t know for sure, all he knew was that he was clouded by rage, and his judgement has been seriously clouded.

~

Death clung to the air the instant he rounded the first corner and raised his weapon. He aimed at the slaver’s chest, his finger gently squeezed the trigger, the pin lit the gunpowder, and the lead blasted forth from the barrel, spiralling elegantly to the mark he had painted at centre mass. The slide shot back, pulling at his wrist. He allowed that momentum to raise the gun efficiently to the enemy’s head, fired a second shot; the Midas-touched shell erupted from the breach, bounced off the wooden support, and buried itself in mud. His form lowered, his sights move. A single breath filled the dark cavern, before an evanescence filled the room, the light blinding, and a second round once again blazed a trail through a man’s skull. The first two men fell by his hand before they could say ‘I stole kids for slave labour.’

~

His hands, coat and face were blood soaked, rustic; ruby liquid dripped off of his nose and into the soil. These lands could have grown wonderful flowers, if they had all died up here, as they should have. His gun was empty, the slide locked back, the queue all but satisfied and the barrel cool to the touch. He fiddled with a bullet in his left palm, rolling it between finger and thumb.

~

The barrel pressed lightly against the enemy’s chest, and he barely screamed before it burst, the crimson splattered assailant followed the body’s fall; a second shot carried on through his chin as he fell, a double tap as insurance. He continued to lower his stance into a roll, a round splashing mud up from the earth, he stabilised, aimed, fired a shot at the attacker’s shin, then another to the head. The Glock 17 in his hand snapped back, empty, the final shell finding rest on another dead boy’s body. He dropped the mag, caught it, and threw it at the next assailant’s head as he rose to a dash, dazing him. He loaded his next magazine, grasped the enemy’s surprised face and threw him to the ground, pinning him. He looked up as two more of those animals flooded into the room. He took aim, one hand still pinning the screaming enemy, he saw a foot first, and took a toe, then the end of a rifle, and a took a finger. The two men doubled into the room in agony, before graciously accepting the two final rounds he presented. Confident that he was clear, for now, he aimed down and took the man’s eye through the back of the skull, burying it in mud, or at least, what was left of the eye. He slid the magazine into his bloody, scorched, ravaged hands and inspected the contents. Eleven rounds. He rose to his feet, and continued.

~

It was so easy to kill them in his anger, so simple to just walk down and leave nothing. Perhaps it was better that the boys died, leave no ties to this event. Leave it as a nightmare never again to be approached. But that wasn’t quite how life worked. The bullet now resided in the chamber, though he had yet to rack the rail. Moaning, and sobs, mixed with the rain and the thunder above, the trees around him and the very quarry itself bent to the will of the wind. It was cold.

~

He burst into the lowest room of the mine, turning right, firing once, before twisting left and firing twice. Two men fell to the ground, their chests and skulls shattered. He dove forward under the desk that sat in the muddy office, as the laptop and the wood it rested upon were torn to shreds. This wasn’t like the movies, there was one boy left. If he could save, just one… They stopped firing to reload, and so he rolled out to the side of the desk and ripped the life out of the enemy as he fumbled with the bolt. Next, his sights rested on the thigh of his next target, tearing through a main artery before tapping a shot through his cranium. He stood and clasped his other hand to his weapon, training it on the villain that gripped the boy’s neck.

“Let him go.” He remembered saying.

“No.” The villain smirked, as he splattered the kid’s brain across the wall. Filled with some form of tranquil anger, the final shot pierced the jaw of his target, then the forehead, then the left shoulder. The shell seemed to freeze in the air, smoking, twirling, its vengeance unleashed. The shell fell to the mud, and became one with the earth, as too would the boys and the animals he fed to the slaughter. His slide was locked back once more, and he dropped the mag to the ground.

~

In front of him lay a child. One of the boys taken down into that abyss. One of the boys whom had crawled out of the entrance, blood leaking from his back like a fountain as it mixed with the sapphire lead from above, painting the umber skin copper. The kid gargled blood, liquid rust spilling between his teeth.

He locked the slide forward and rested his finger on the trigger. His hazel eyes stared deeply into the child’s emerald eyes that begged for something that he did so willingly and effortlessly only seconds before, yet now seemed impossible. He raised the weapon and aimed it at the child’s nose. Oceanic tears rolled down his cheeks.

The bullet was meant for him.

Not for the kid he was trying to save.

The kid, was as old as he was. But all he saw was a child, the child he once knew.

When he pulled the trigger, and the sound cracked in time with the thunder, something broke inside of him, and the rain and storm that fell could not silence the sounds of his screams. For they had been his brothers, and in his escape, he had failed them. The gun fell to the ground, spent, dead, the darkness within all but freed.

~

“When I escape this place, I’ll train. I’ll become the best, and I’ll come back for you. Okay?”

“Okay. I trust you.”

“I’ll save you all. Just like in the movies.” He nodded, a grin striking his face.