The real ‘fun’ came as they placed his head by the rear wheel of the cruiser. Two of the men held Mrs. Pinchant’s heaving body still so that she could watch as Officer Gibson slowly ran over Mr. Pinchant’s head. The tire gripped the front portion of his face, and his cheek and nose began to pull away from his face under the pressure. For a moment the heavy car started to ‘climb’ up his face, but gravity was not on Mr. Pinchant’s side as bone after bone began to crack and shatter from the pressure. The back of his head started to swell to almost twice its normal size before it burst under the strain. Brain matter shot nearly 30 feet away from the back of the cruiser and the men laughed. Mrs. Pinchant had long since passed out from the strain. The two holding her released her. Her head bounced off the ground teeth first, shattering four or five of them in the process. She regained consciousness five minutes later, shrieking in pain and horror as she was placed next to her husband’s deformed, deflated head.
“Job! Shut her up!” Officer Gibson said as he cupped his hands over his ears. “She’s louder than that stupid Cockatoo my wife just had to have.” Job walked over to her and placed one round through her right ear. He stared for a few seconds longer before commenting, “I guess what they say is true,” then turned and walked away.
“What’s true?” Kyle, the third member of the gang asked.
“That the longer a couple stays married the more they start to look alike,” Job said with a wicked grin.
Kyle walked over to the dead pair and tried to find any similarities. “I don’t see it Job.” “Don’t worry about it,” Officer Gibson, the man in charge said. “Drag these two off the street and let’s see what this car has to offer.” Kyle did what he was told, studying both people as he did so. When the task was finally complete he went over to a lounging Job. “I get it now, it’s because both of their heads are blown up.” Job winked, clucked his tongue and tapped his head.
“I knew it!” Kyle said, happy he had figured the puzzle out.
“What now, Boss?” Wes, the fourth of the deadly horsemen, asked as he piled up the belongings of the Pinchants’ car into the trunk of the cruiser for sorting, “This is sure easier than going house to house looking for s tuff .” “And funner,” Job added.
“Now we wait,” Officer Gibson said, getting back into his car. He slowly rubbed his temples as one killer of a headache began to let its true intentions be known. “And find me some damn aspirin!” he barked.
“Even better Boss!” Wes said as he shook the bottle of pain pills in front of the quickly blurring vision of the officer.
“Give me those,” Gibson said, grabbing the bottle out of Wes’ hand before the rattling noise threatened to split his skull. “And stop calling me ‘Boss.’ You’re not on a Southern chain gang!” “You got it Bos… Aaron,” Wes said as he left before Aaron could let lose a tirade.
Wes was already forgotten as the officer opened the bottle of meds. He couldn’t see clearly enough to make out what the medication or the dose was, but he figured two seemed like a safe amount on top of the three somethings he had taken earlier. Little did he know that there weren’t enough pills in the bottle to cure the true cause of his pain, arteriovenous malformation, unless of course he took ALL of them at once. The good officer’s head was leaking internally and without some serious medical attention he would be dead in three weeks. The pain pills did what most good pain pills do; they allowed him to drift off into a pain free sleep environment. But even his sleep was haunted with pain, pain of a different kind, but pain nonetheless.
“Hey hon, I’m home. Left a little early, that friggen’ headache was starting to come on. We got any liquid pain killer?” This was Officer Gibson’s joking way of referring to beer. “Hon?” he asked as he placed his duty belt on the hook by the door. The house was quiet. That wasn’t too unusual, his wife Wendy was often out with their 4-year-old son Aaron Jr. But he could hear the television in the family room and the kitchen light was on. Wendy was very particular about conserving power, her contribution to the green movement. She would even admonish him if he stared into the fridge too long without grabbing something.
Cops are nothing if not paranoid, and that quality had saved more than one during their careers. Aaron grabbed his 9mm Walther out of his duty belt. He quietly chambered a round and slowly walked towards the family room. He attempted to regulate his heartbeat as he moved past the kitchen, but this wasn’t some punk perp’s house, this was his home. Wendy and AJ were his world; he was a cop so he could do his part to make the world a better place for them. But if the scum of the planet had somehow made way into his private sanctuary, h ell would not have enough in its coffers to pay the note.
“Wendy?” He asked softly, barely loud enough to be heard past his mouth. The sound waves would never make it down the hallway, much less around the corner and into AJ’s bedroom where more light was spilling from. He decided to forgo the family room and check AJ’s first. “AJ?” Aaron’s heart was now threatening to rupture through his rib cage. His cop sense was pegged out; all was not right. He slowly maneuvered down the hallway, keeping his pistol in front of him. Silently he moved his feet forward, hoping he would find Wendy rocking their child to sleep, instead of the images of so many crime scenes that kept flashing through his head.
“They’re both asleep,” he said softly, his right foot moving ahead of the left. “He was cranky and just needed a nap.” His left foot pushed past his right. “And Wendy was tired also.” His right foot came to rest by the entrance to AJ’s bedroom. “So she took a nap too.” He took a big breath to try and quell the panic that threatened to overtake him. Small sounds were escaping through the doorway. They were not the comforting sounds of Wendy’s heavy sleeping breaths or the mumbling chatter that AJ sometimes made during his naps. It was a clacking noise that reminded him of the old toy monkeys that would crash the little cymbals together. But that wasn’t it exactly, that noise was too tinny. This had a sound more like two dice crashing together. Officer Gibson took that final step from the hallway into the threshold of the bedroom and out of the realm of sanity forever.
“AJ?” Aaron asked. His 4 year old son was standing with his back to his father over the prone body of his mother. Wendy was lying face down on the floor; an ever expanding pool of blood encircled the pair. The fatherly part of Aaron wanted to put his gun down and rush to the aid of his wife and son. The cop part of him hesitated. “AJ?” he asked again. AJ acknowledged his father’s presence this time. He turned, his face bathed in blood, strips of flesh hanging from his mouth. His hands were covered elbow deep in gore.
“AJ, what did you do?” Aaron asked his son. AJ took a step towards his dad. Aaron backed up until his back was against the far hallway wall. AJ kept coming. “AJ, please. Please stop,” Aaron said, his gun shaking wildly. AJ teetered a step, almost losing his footing in the slick liquid that coated the flooring. “That’s a bad boy,” Aaron said. AJ was beyond caring about his father’s approval and relentlessly pressed on.
Aaron closed his eyes as he sprayed the immediate area with three pistol shots. The first shot popped into the doorframe sending a shower of splinters into his child’s room. The second shattered his son’s left leg and the third completed the deed. The round entered to the left of the child’s nose and exited at the base of his skull. The sound of the bullets being shot could not compete with the solid thud of impact as AJ’s body met the floor. Aaron spent a few more seconds looking past the lifeless body of his son to that of his wife. There would be no recovery from the 3 inch wide, 2 inch deep wound in his wife’s neck; blood had already ceased to flow.