I'll See You in Hell

  I'll See You in Hell

  Damon Young

  “I’ll see you in Hell” — to most, it’s just a spiteful throwaway line spit from the lips of condemned men into the faces of their executioners before they meet their end. But for these two men, professional killers with a bitter personal rivalry, it’s more than just a promise. It’s a covenant born in blood that will take their feud well beyond the grave, into the deepest, darkest pits of the infernal afterlife. And even an assassin who thinks he’s seen it all is not ready for what awaits him below.

  Damon Young

  I’LL SEE YOU IN HELL

  Call me Kingston. Killing is my vocation. It comes naturally to me, so, like the best prodigies, I decided to make a career of it. Some people would say that makes me a sociopath. That’s why I try not to take too much pleasure in my work.

  Of all the men I’d killed, I enjoyed Seamus the most, much to my regret. But, to be completely fair, the S.O.B. had it coming.

  Ours is supposed to be a quiet profession, done secretly. Anonymously. Discreetly. But professionalism, anonymity, and discretion were qualities that, apparently, were all well beyond Seamus. He reveled in the notoriety and the mass panic that came with a big, bloody, public massacre. Seamus had become an embarrassment and liability to our mutual employers, so when the contract came with his name on it, I tried not to crack too much of a smile. After all, this was a job.

  Seamus was a disgrace. But he was also very good. Despite his sloppy methods, he somehow never managed to get caught, and he always got his man, along with anyone else within the blast radius. I needed to make sure he didn’t wiggle his way out of this one.

  I’d planned a clean hit: no collateral damage, no witnesses, no reason for anyone to think anything other than that the dumb bastard had finally doped himself to death. But most important of all, I wouldn’t even have to be in the room to see his big snaggletoothed grin before he shuffled off of this mortal coil. All I had to do was sit back across the street and wait for the ambulance to show up to pronounce him. Sit back. Relax. Watch Seamus’ neighbor give her girlfriend a sponge bath.

  A nice clean hit.

  Until I heard the gunshot. And my name, screamed from Seamus’ mouth. He came bursting out onto the balcony of his apartment, frothing at the mouth, waiving a Glock with the tainted needle still hanging from his arm.

  “Kingston!!! I know it’s you, Kingston!!”

  With a gunshot for every exclamation point.

  Luckily, I came prepared. I leaned over to the other side of my balcony, looked through the scope of the rifle that was already positioned and trained on Seamus’s apartment, and put a bullet through his forehead.

  Dirty, but, sadly, necessary.

  “Is that all you’ve got, Kingston!?” With a bullet in his forehead, Seamus turned in the direction of my shot and just started blasting. I ducked down to dodge the hail of bullets and unloaded on him. This had broken down far too quickly. I needed to finish him off before the sirens arrived. But even laying on my side and aiming through a balcony railing, I’m a damn good shot. I hit Seamus three more times, square in the chest.

  “There you are, Kingston! I’ve got you now!”

  Riddled with bullets, Seamus jumped from his balcony to the fire escape and started climbing down to the street. The SOB just wouldn’t die.

  Clearly the rifle didn’t have the stopping power I needed. If anything, Seamus was thick. I rolled into the empty apartment, flipped open my case, and grabbed the Desert Eagle. The time for finesse had passed.

  I ran back to the balcony, hoping to get a quick one off into the top of Seamus’ skull. But he was gone from the fire escape and out of sight. I looked around the ground floor of Seamus’ building, hoping maybe I’d lucked out and he’d slipped and finally cracked his skull on the pavement. I leaned over the balcony to see the whole street. No such luck.

  Then a hand grabbed my ankle through the railing.

  “Kingston!”

  And there he was, with that big stupid gap-toothed grin, face glistening with blood in the moonlight. Seamus, climbing up the balconies to get to me. It was ridiculous. It was almost funny.

  “Now I’ve got you!”

  I aimed for his mouth. He knocked the Desert Eagle to the street. He pulled my leg through the railing, tripping me and knocking me down to the ground. He climbed over the railing, drooling blood onto my slacks. I kicked him in the face. He lost a tooth, but kept grinning. I tried to pull back into the apartment. Seamus tumbled onto me like a giggling sack of potatoes.

  “Get back here, Kingston! We’re not finished!”

  He took the needle from his arm and stabbed me with it in the gut before filling me with the poisoned heroin. I’m not a screamer like Seamus, but sometimes, your pain gets the best of your dignity.

  “I knew if I caused a big enough scene, they’d eventually send you, pretty boy. Always looking down on me, like you’re something special.”

  I pulled my rifle & bashed him in the head. When would I learn? Hitting him in the head was clearly a waste of time as he bled all over my nice new Zegna suit, clawing for my face.

  I bit down hard and took two of his fingers with me. I spat them back in his face. Seamus cackled through the pain.

  “Look at you, Kingston! You’re not special! You’re just like me!”

  He was blabbering right in my face. Finally close enough where I could knee him in the one head that really counted on the dumb bastard. Seamus cackled as he rolled over, clutching his family jewels with his eight remaining fingers.

  I got to all-fours just as Seamus pulled a Saturday Night Special from his ankle holster. He got off two quick shots — one through my shoulder, the other through my earlobe — before I smashed his arm against the rail and broke his wrist.

  Staggering, I was light-headed when I slumped over him and pulled out my knife.

  “Got a secret, Kingston! It’s a big surprise!”

  With his bad hand, he starts perforating my stomach with the needle. I stabbed his arm and nailed it to the ground, just to make him stop. I ripped off what’s left of his shirt, just to make sure the dumb bastard’s not wearing Kevlar or something before I fillet him.

  Seamus spat out another tooth as he laughed.

  Even through the bullet wounds and blood, I saw that his whole chest is covered with tattoos: a black goat’s head with flaming eyes in a circle and surrounded by writing in some language I didn’t understand.

  “Surprise!”

  Big fucking deal. He had an ugly tattoo. Definitely didn’t see that coming. Yawn.

  I stabbed him right in the goat’s forehead.

  And black blood came out.

  Black. It looked like steaming hot crude oil spurting in a gusher around my knife. But I know the smell of blood, even when it’s rotted and spoiled like this.

  Seamus was gagging. But still grinning.

  “I’ll see you in Hell, Kingston.”

  I had to admit: I didn’t see that coming.

  Whatever.

  I stabbed him again. And again. But the bastard would not just shut up. So I finally just held down his forehead and sawed until I cut his head off.

  And THEN he was dead. Finally.

  It was a real horror show. I was covered in my blood and whatever the Hell else was coursing through Seamus’ veins. A slug in the shoulder. Missing a piece of my ear. Gushing blood like a spigot from all the needle holes in my gut. I looked at Seamus, and I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking “You should see the other guy.”

  I couldn’t stop laughing. Most of the contracts I’d done in the last 10 or 15 years were all whisper jobs: nobody even knows it’s a hit, it’s so clean and blameless. I was still a kid the last time I had to really
mix it up like the old days. Most of the time, if someone wants to go toe-to-toe with me, they’re really better off just lying down and taking the poison. Otherwise, they bring out the part of me that Seamus got to that night.

  The part of me that likes it when my hands are sticky.

  Most of the time, it’s just some poor deadbeat or a random family man. Rarely is it a pro in his prime, and, even if it is, I make sure it never, ever comes down to fisticuffs. I liked living and getting paid for doing the job way too much to leave it to that much chance.

  But Seamus? A whole other story. The fact that he was an asshole was just the icing on the cake. It was awesome. That dumb bastard had given me the best time I’d had on the job in my entire life.

  I laughed my ass off. Until I started gagging. And puking up blood. Black blood. The damn needle.

  And even though his head was rolling around on the balcony, Seamus still mocked me with that stupid, gap-toothed grin. I scrambled around the balcony, trying to get my grip onto something that could make it stop.

  And, in that perfect moment, the cops kicked the door in.

  “Freeze! Put the knife down, now!”

  Fuck you. I’d rather take a bullet than die from my own poison. I staggered to my feet, spit black blood at them, and threw the knife.

  I counted 18 hits before the shots knocked me over the rail. Not bad.

  Of course, I was wide awake and puking into my own face all the way down to the pavement. Not nearly as magical and painless as you might hope. Then again, I was only on the 5th floor. Luckily, I landed headfirst. And, yes, in case your wondering, having your neck snapped as the full weight of your body squashes your skull into a lovely pink pâté hurts about a hundred times more than it sounds for the millisecond it takes to actually kill you.

  At least, it did with me. It took me a second to actually realize that I was dead. It’s not like the pain just stopped. Quite the opposite, in fact. If I had to describe it, the closest I could get would be to say “Imagine a 13 inch needle with a burning tip being pushed all the way through every single patch of skin, under every finger & toe nail, into every pore and orifice. And then they wiggle them all around, just for fun.”

  I opened my eyes. I was lying face down on the street. I rolled over, taking a second to process where I was. I was still in the street where I’d fallen off the balcony. But I was still alive. Somehow. No broken bones. No pink pâté brain fritter.

  Something rolled off of my balcony and landed right next to me. It was Seamus’ head, bouncing like a soccer ball, still with that awful gap-toothed grin. Instinct kicked in. I remembered the cops and figured it would only be a minute before they were back down here and on top of me. Couldn’t take a chance that 20 gunshot wounds, poisoned heroin, and a squashed head might not get miraculously healed again. Thank you, Hitman Gods, but it was time to scram. I looked around for any sign of the police to see what direction to move. Someone was standing on my balcony. But I couldn’t make out who it was.

  Because he didn’t have a head.

  He leaned over the balcony and pointed at me.

  “He’s here!”

  But that voice came from next to me on the ground. It was Seamus’ head, talking and ratting me out. You son of a bitch. I punted that head down the street. But by then it was too late.

  Every balcony on both buildings was filled with people. They looked down in the direction that Seamus’ headless body was pointing. And then they all started climbing down to my level. This was not good. Suddenly the street filled up with people. Men, women, children. And they were all glaring at me. Silently.

  In the crowd, I recognized someone: “Johnny C.”, we used to call him. Always wore a fedora because he thought he looked like Frank Sinatra in those old studio portraits. He didn’t. He really looked like a Jersey Shore reject trying to class-up.

  I killed Johnny C. six years ago. And he still had the bullet hole in his forehead to prove it. Slowly, I realized that I recognized them all. These were all of the people I’d killed over the years, still bearing the wounds I’d inflicted.

  And that’s when it dawned on me. This was Hell.

  I must admit, I was a little disappointed.

  Where was the fire and brimstone? Where was the endless suffering and torment? This was just a random street corner from Brooklyn. And where was The Devil?

  More lies the priests told us.

  For a professional as prolific as yours truly, I fully expected to be greeted at the gates of Hell by the souls of all the men and women and children I’ve killed over the course of my career.

  Frankly, that didn’t really phase me. I figured I could take them.

  There was a family of three standing nearest to me — the Masons. I’d locked them in their own two-car garage and left the Camry running to end their blissfully suburban existence back in 2000. But on my first night in Hell, I kicked 6-year old Cindy Mason straight in the teeth.

  Come on, you pansies! Show me what you’ve got!

  Cindy Mason took a chunk out of my calf with a row of jagged, pointed teeth that would have made a great white cringe. They all snarled in unison, bearing their zombie fangs and descending on me.

  I should have known better. Most of those people are really in the other place, sipping Mai Tais on Cloud 9 with St. Peter and Gandhi. I was actually surrounded by demons.

  That was more like it.

  I punched, kicked, and bit everything in sight. In the process, I lost my foot, my fist, my molars. They dug their claws into me and just start ripping me apart. It was like a bad George A. Romero movie.

  Once everyone had a piece of me, they all just started wandering aimlessly, bumping into each other as they gnawed on my separated flesh. And even though I was no longer whole, I felt every bite, every chew in every demonic mouth.

  A demon wearing the face of Gladys Page, a bookstore-owning octogenarian I had pushed down in her bathtub a few weeks back, managed to make off with my head and was nibbling on my chin on the front step of the building, when the crowd parted.

  It was Seamus, holding his giggling head like the Heisman trophy as he approached Gladys and my head.

  “Ah, Kingston. I told you I wasn’t done with you. And my friends here, this is just the beginning.”

  This was Hell, and that dumb headless bastard was laughing. His shirt was open, and the eyes on the goat’s head tattoo were glowing a dull red. Seamus caught me looking, and grinned.

  “Doesn’t look so stupid now, does it? See, I’ve known for a long time that I was going to Hell. So, I called ahead and made a reservation. While you were up there, running me down to the boss, I talked to our REAL boss down here. He promised me that, as long as I brought a soul with me, I’d have power down here.”

  Dumbass. You’re holding your own head. Of course, at that point, I was just one head telling another head how stupid it was, so I suppose I really wasn’t one to talk.

  “Doesn’t matter down here.”

  He just as calmly re-attached his own head. Which gave me an idea. I could still feel my hand in the mouth of Holly Richardson, some co-ed who had the misfortune of laughing at the penis of a very well connected individual who employed me. As she turned my hand to get a good bite, I made a fist and punched her in the jaw. I could feel all of me everywhere in this street corner, and the one thought I pushed through my entire being was “Punish”.

  Disembodied feet kicked. Demons all along the street with my flesh in their stomachs started collapsing in piles of their own puke and shit. My head spat in Gladys’s eye before I bit her nose off. The streets ran black with demon blood.

  I told you I could take them.

  Seamus looked around and laughed even more.

  “Oh, you’re going to be so much fun, Kingston. He gave me power down here. I know all the things deep down inside of you that you don’t ever want anyone to know. Let me show you.”

  I blinked.

  I was whole and sitting on the ratty couch with the busted s
prings we used to have in my mother’s old apartment. A folding tray was in front of me with a half-eaten Happy Meal. Mom’s floor-model TV was directly in front, showing some old imported Japanese cartoon. I heard the doorbell ring. Instinctively, I reached for my knife. All I had was a handful of Bazooka Joe bubble gum in my shorts pocket. I looked down at myself. I was 9 years old again. And I remember what day this is supposed to be all too well.

  “Jimmy! Get the door! Mama’s working!”

  I could hear the bedsprings and the headboard and my mother being stretched to the limits in the next room. The doorbell rang again. No way. No way in Hell I was getting up to open that door.

  I blinked.

  I was at the door. The locks unlocked themselves. I backed away as far as I can. The door followed me. No matter how far or fast I ran, I’m still right in front of the door.

  It opened. And there, standing in the hallway, was a frail man in a black suit with a white collar. Silvery hair and glasses.

  “Praise the Lord, Jimmy. Are you ready for Vacation Bible School?”

  I wanted to punch him right in the balls. I wanted to gouge his eyes out. I wanted to sink my teeth into his throat until this sick bastard was begging for mercy.

  But all I did was cry. That’s really all you can do when you’re nine years old.

  I blinked again.

  I was in the church rectory. It never occurred to me how disgustingly ironic that name was, given what had happened to me here all those years ago. Given what was about to happen again. The man in black locked the door behind him and started to unbuckle his pants. I remember that, when this really happened to me as a kid, it was probably the last time I ever said “Oh, God” out loud. After all, what was the fucking point? Not like He did a damn thing to stop it. After all, this was His man, about to literally have his way with my nine year old ass.

  I wanted to look away, but something about his face. I never ever forgot that face, even after the last time I’d seen it, when I was an adult and had, in fact, come back here to gouge out his eyes and make him scream for mercy.