The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

Boulder, along with a couple of books on the Manson family. Tabitha’s studied photos of Roman Polanski’s house from the night of the killings. The bullet holes in the ceiling, the writing in blood on the walls. Owen wanted to tell her that there wouldn’t be as much blood this time, that she shouldn’t get her hopes up. Tabitha barely spoke until yesterday, when it was time to lay out her plan, sequestering herself in the back seat of the van with pictures of a fifty-year-old murder scene.

Marita sneaks up behind him as he looks up at the big house. She slips her hand down the front of Owen’s pants and wraps her fingers around his cock. They burn a little. Owen isn’t used to the feel of her actual skin.

“Excited yet, O?” she whispers in his ear.

“I’m concentrating,” Owen says, removing her hand. She looks insulted.

“And now we walk in,” Tabitha says, leading them up the long driveway. Each dark window of the house holds its own reflection of the sun setting behind them over the desert: four red fireballs dealt out like tarot cards on a table.

“You sure he’s alone?” Oliver asks. There are three cars in the drive.

“Doesn’t matter,” says Tabitha. “We kill whoever we find.”

Any of them could take out the lock except maybe Darren. Owen’s way is the quietest. The doorknob, the whole mechanism of it, along with a piece of the door frame, gone. Darren pushes the front door open with a finger, and they step into an entryway with stairs leading up to the second floor. The house rumbles with music: plodding bass and a dipshit carnival keyboard line.

“I fucking love this song,” a man shouts from upstairs. His voice is a rich baritone, booming through the house over the music on the stereo. “Three Dog Night. This has gotta be before your time, right? You kids. You perfect little girls.” A woman squeaks and giggles.

“Not alone,” Andre says. His skeleton fingers scrape along the drywall.

“Honey, where’s the coke?” yells a girl’s voice.

“Kitchen,” shouts another.

Hargrave passes the top of the stairs, towel wrapped around his waist, bottle of whiskey in his hand. He does that dance the guys Owen’s mom used to date did, where he shimmies his shoulders, elbows bent, like he’s trying to squeeze his ass backward into a tight space. The ceiling light explodes behind him as Tabitha lobs a globe of energy into it. Hargrave dives to the ground.

“Shooter!” he shrieks. “Shooter!” The whiskey bottle rolls down the stairs one step at a time, plunk plunk plunk. It leaves a trail and turns Hargrave’s attention to the entryway. He’s lying at the top of the stairs, towel undone, ass hanging out, hands covering his head. He looks at Owen. “What the fuck?” he says.

Oliver is the first up the stairs, taking them in two bounds and sweeping Jefferson up in one hand. He pins the naked fat man against the wall. “How many in the house?” he growls.

“Three girls,” Jefferson says. “Me and three girls.”

The answer is no longer necessary. The girls, in bikinis and silk robes, are standing in the doorway to the kitchen, gawking at Oliver in horror.

“Hello, ladies,” Darren says, doffing an imaginary hat. “I wouldn’t move if I were you.” The blender on the counter blows up, spraying strawberry daiquiri and shattered glass onto one of the girls. Andre moves behind her, wrapping a bony arm around her shoulder and wiping daiquiri off her breast with his finger. Marita grabs the bottle of whiskey, takes a swig, and lights the trail of spilled booze on fire. Darren ogles the girls as Oliver eases Jefferson back to the ground. Owen looks at Jefferson the way a sculptor looks at a fresh block of marble. He assesses what needs to be cut away to reveal the beauty beneath.

Marita passes the bottle to Darren, who takes a long pull off it and holds it out to Hargrave.

“Take a hit, fat man?” he says. “Everyone’s entitled to a last drink.”

Owen doesn’t like the way Darren is taking point on this op. He does this every time, and every time afterward Tabitha chews his ass about it. Owen’s never said anything because he wants to let Darren think he’s special. They all have a piece of Owen’s friend in their heads, and for a while that made him jealous. But his friend knew about the jealousy. He felt it. Remember you’re special to me, he told Owen. There are many terrors, but you are my Great Destroyer.

Hargrave refuses, and Darren shoves the bottle at him. He takes Hargrave by the back of the neck and pours whiskey into him. Hargrave sobs. He’s so scared, he pisses right on Darren’s leg.

“Holy shit,” Marita says, pointing and laughing as the thin stream of piss soaks Darren’s jeans. Oliver and even Tabitha break out laughing.

“What the fuck?” Darren screams. He pulls out the pistol he carries in the back of his pants because his ability is basically useless and shoots Hargrave in the forehead. Hargrave slumps against the wall. Owen’s visions of long and painful torture pop like balloons. He waited so long for this. He went with them on every bullshit errand they had to run. He cleaned up after their messes and their murder scenes like a fucking maid to get here, to get in this room with the man who killed Wendy. Might as well have driven the fucking spikes into her wings, and now he’s dead without suffering for one second.

Owen forms the null into a flat plane, a plate of nothing that slices Darren in half, diagonally, from his left bicep to above his right hip. Darren’s face goes from anger, to shock, to nothing. His left arm, cut free, drops to the ground, and the upper part of his torso sloughs off the rest. It hits the floor and tumbles down the stairs. Darren’s legs fold, and what’s left of him sits down, almost gracefully, at Tabitha’s