a night in the life of CAGE

7:00 pm

            It is dusk as my pupils have become the size of dimes. My life isn’t too conventional for this day and age. I’ve been able to adapt to the scenery change and the culture change but the way people treat each other is just appalling. Bullying one another to get what they want, picking on the weak ones because they know they can overpower them. Well, in my line of work I specialize in leveling the playing field. See I’m what you call a ‘mercenary’, I don’t’ work for anyone specific and at the moment I’m working for personal reasons.

            This cruel world has brought me to New Orleans, Louisiana. The crime in this city is just outstanding and I intend to change that. I will be spending the next 6 months here determining who is corrupting this city into such a vile place and exterminate them for the cockroaches they are.

            I’ve been doing what I’m doing for a long time, but I used to be like everybody else, but more selfish than anybody this side of hell. That was a lifetime ago, literally. That story is for a different day. It’s time to get ready.

 

7:30 pm

            I have been watching one thug in particular, they call him Little Fat. Little Fat is the son to known Mob underboss Frank “Fat Frank” Gagliano, who died back in ’06. I have been following Little Fat for a few weeks now and I can tell you what he will be doing in exactly one hour. He will be eating at Café Corollo and he will order the Linguini with Clam sauce as he does every Tuesday. But, this will be the last time he tastes Linguini because tonight... I’m hungry.

 

7:45 pm

            I enjoy a glass of Merlot, slowing pouring it down my throat, absorbing the sweet reminiscence of past prey. As the wine warms my frigid body I ponder how I will eliminate this scumbag of a human, silent and subtle, or do I make an example out of him?

8:00 pm

            I walk into my meditation chambers, not quite up to code, but seeing as I won’t be here too long it will do. I breathe slow, exhaling my demons and inhaling the righteousness of my upcoming actions. Essentially what I am doing is wrong and I don’t think I am above the law. I’m just a different kind of law, the kind that sees evil and fight it with evil. Obviously, I keep to myself and stay hidden because no matter what, what I’m doing is a crime and sometimes the way that I leave my victims is nothing to be proud about. But, I still smile, “fangs out”, I always say.

 

8:30 pm

            I am now mentally ready for my attack and a bit anxious. I haven’t hunted in about a week, well, humans that is and my bloodlust for the sophistication of a human’s body was getting almost unbearable. I really haven’t ventured out much since I got here, just to get what information I need about these low-lives. But they make it way too easy the way they flaunt themselves around like they’re Gods. I’m here to show them they’re not, but I’ll show them who Satan is.

            One more glass of Merlot then I’m off to Corollo’s.

 

9:00 pm

            I leave my cabin that is tucked away on the very out-skirts of town. Two miles passed the suburbs but it will only take about 2-3 minutes to reach the front doors of the café on foot. I’m pretty graceful when it comes to running and some even say I am the wind, ha-ha.

            I’m not your typical mercenary; I’m not a hard-headed, brute force badass with a dislike for the world. You wouldn’t be able to tell I’m a mercenary just by looking at me because I’m rather scrawny.  I’m about 5’10”, 155 pounds, but looks can definitely be deceiving.

 

9:15 pm

            I’m waiting for him across the street from the café. He will be exiting from the door that leads in the alley where his car is parked. He should be coming out any minute now, so I cross the street. His driver is patiently waiting in the car as always as I tap on the driver’s side window. I must have startled him because he seemed kind of angry when he rolled down his window about two inches. After he’s finished cursing at me I ask him if he’s got a light for my cigarette. I know he has one because there is a pile of cigarette butts sitting outside of the car at my feet. I vulgarly declines that he has one and tell me to leave, not so nicely but of course. I look at the pile of cigarette butts that I look at him and smirk.

 

9:20 pm

            Little Fat walked out of the café with one other man. I walked up to him and asked him for a light. He ignored me so I proceeded to grab his arm and repeated the question. He tried freeing his arm from my grip but was reluctant in doing so. He yelled for the other gentleman, who I assume was his body guard, to assist him in getting out of my grasp. Ha, impossible, if you want your arm that is.

            The assumed body guard’s was named Charlie and right now Charlie had a gun to the back of my head. And by now, the driver had gotten out of the car, and had a gun drawn to my head as well. I insisted that he get back in the car, seeing as he supposedly didn’t have a lighter I had no use for him. Still holding onto Little Fat, I put a cigarette into mouth as the driver approached me furiously. I pointed my cigarette at him as he got closer, implying that he had a lighter now. But I assure you he did not because instead of a lighting my cigarette he smacked the right side of my face with the gun, knocking the cigarette onto the ground. The driver and Charlie then proceeded to yell and curse at me, telling me to let Little Fat go, and I simply could not do that.

            With Little Fat directly in front of me, the driver off to my right, and Charlie behind me to the left, I stressed that they should have just given me a light. Because these so called, “badasses” had no idea what was going to happen to them in the next thirty seconds.

            In the blink of an eye, I released Little Fat, stepped back onto my left foot and simultaneously pushed the driver and Charlie twenty feet in each direction and with my last motion had Little Fat by the throat, two feet off the ground.

 

9:30 pm

            I then slam him on the ground shattering several vertebrae in his spine. He gave out an awful cry, nothing that I wasn’t use to, as his eyes became blood shot. I recited a verse from the bible and asked him if I let him live if he’ll change his life around for the better. He then began pleading and begging and ranting about how he never wanted to be a part of this. He never wanted to live the life of a mobster, but he was forced to.

            I get off my knees and walk over to Charlie who was just getting to his. I flip him over onto his back and saw the fear in his eyes. That was my favorite part, knowing that this person before you is so terrified that would do anything for salvation. I slowing open my mouth and hiss at him. Saliva dripping down my fangs as I felt his heart beat faster. I quickly lunge at his throat and release the venom into his blood stream as not to torture him. Ah, the sweet savory taste of a type O negative. They have a slightly tangier taste than other types. Charlie’s warm blood poured down the back of my throat as I felt his body growing colder.

            I was on my last surge when a gun shot went off and my vision went black. I fell on my back next to Charlie but no blood came from my head. I lay there with my eyes closed listening to the   comforting his boss.

            Being the monster that I am has its benefits along with its tortures. One of the benefits is being immortal, everlasting life. I have lived through many generations and many heart breaks. It eventually starts to wear you down. Not having someone to hold for the rest of your life, watching all your loved ones die around you… but I digress. Another benefit is the ability to echo my voice in such a way that whoever shall hear it thinks they are going mad.

            The driver thinks he has killed me, I mean, anyone who gets shot in the back of the head has no right live, only suffer. As the driver hovers over Little Fat who is now weeping, I whisper a echo in Latin, “currere” meaning run. I repeat the word over and over again. Then I open my eyes and lift myself off the ground without the use of my hands. As I position myself upright to face the driver I keep repeating “currere” without moving my lips. I am now floating a couple of feet off the ground; it’s a nice parlor trick that I don’t use often enough. Being in the part of New Orleans called “Little Italy” I figure they must know a little Latin and sure enough it only takes a few seconds of floating in mid-air to get the driver to run. Now I will have a little bit of a challenge the next time I go hunting, but right now it’s time for Little Fat.

 

9:40 pm

            I return back down to the ground and walk over to his motionless body, he is paralyzed. I told him that if he changed I would spare him, but if it takes something this traumatizing to change his prospective I don’t want to give him that chance. I straddle him, stepping on both of his arms. I look deeply into his soul and see the darkness I feel within myself. Blessed be the soul that finds its way to heaven. I lean over and easily yet anxiously rip his head off his body. The blood pours from his body and I cannot bare to drink the indecency that I once desired. It really means something if even a monster has his limits.

 

10:00 pm

            I walk over to the car and found a lighter in the center console. I light my cigarette and think about what Little Fat was confessing. Though most of it was him trying to save his own a*s, he did give me a piece of information on who will be my next project. “Silver Dollar” Sam.

 

10:06 pm

         I grab Charlie and Little Fats’ bodies and toss them into the trunk of the car. I’m surprised no one has shown up since the driver ran off, oh well. I know I wasn’t too subtle but I don’t want to leave a mess and draw attention to my actions. The media will be all over this by the morning but the car and the bodies will be long gone.

 

10:10 pm

            I leave New Orleans headed west to a town in Texas. This was a more typical night for me, feeding, then cleaning up by driving hours away to dispose of the bodies. I had some friends in Texas in a similar line of work that would know exactly what to do.

 

12:00 am

            These car drives are always boring but they are the times that I reflect on my past and the good times in my life. Having no one solid in my life gets cold, but loneliness is a friend of who I am now.

            I pull over at a gas station in Jeanerette, Louisiana. Over the years I have come across a vast number of fortunes and riches, so money is never a problem for me. I don’t want anybody to discover who I am so I keep to myself and don’t flaunt it. The only fear I have is beating the sunrise home. I only take what I need, but I’m not worried, there is plenty of time to get back home. The night is still very young.

 

3:30 am

        I’m  in Texas now and it’s taken a little longer than expected but that’s because I took side roads and drove through rural towns. I drove most of the way nest to the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn’t the quickest route but I’m not worried about the time. I just want to get to my destination with potentially getting caught. About an hour left of driving.

 

4:15 am

        I am casually driving through Galveston, Texas enjoying the dense fog of the morning. The silence hold a peaceful thickness to it and allows me to breathe in reality. I am driving a stolen car and have two dead bodies in the truck and I couldn’t be more happier about this evenings prior events. I know I must sound twisted but this is the most noble thing I’ve done in years. That too is for another time,

            I come in on the north side of town on the only road available from that direction. It turns into Ferry Road and I take that until it becomes 2^nd Street then curves into Seawall Boulevard, I take a right onto Broadway Avenue and cruise through the center of town, it’s a decent sized town having a population of 47,743. It could be some nice hunting grounds if I didn’t have an agreement with whom I’m going to see stating that I would never hunt in this town. Especially after what Little Fat “discretely” told me just as I “gently” removed his head from his body, haha!

 

4:30 am

            I’m driving around trying to remember where the last place I saw them was, “them” being the Brothers Moon. Rave and Rhap Moon, a pair of adrenaline fueled brothers that I crossed paths with under some very different circumstances. Harborside Drive! That’s right, the last I knew they had opened a skydiving shop by the bay. They weren’t expecting me but they always love a free meal.

 

4:45 am

        I found the shop rather quickly but of course it wasn’t open at this hour so I parked around back. I wrote them a brief note letting them know I was sorry for not sticking around to catch up but I had to beat the sunrise home and signed it “Cage”, they’ll understand.

            I leave the car keys on the visor and head towards the water. I take a deep breath as I’m running along the beach an remember how I love the smell coming off the Galveston Bay. It’s not too tourist friendly around these parts mainly cause it’s a business part of town but that’s better because I need to rest.

 

5:00 am

            I could smell the sunrise just over the horizon and could feel that I needed to get home because I was becoming somnolent. Being miles away from home didn’t matter, all I had to do is find a safe place barricaded from light, under a dock will do.

             I hurry under and lay down on my back and cross my arms across my chest, typical I know, but it seems to work the best. What I was doing was “resting” and in about an hour I would “dissolve” from Galveston, Texas and resolve back in New Orleans, Louisiana, if that’s where I choose to go. A nice trick I learned while running away from “seekers”, who happen to be a lovely bunch of men and women who are wildly jealous of my state of being and would like nothing more than to burn me at the stake. Fools.

 

5:46 am

            Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

 

6:00 am

        I am safely back at my home, for the time being, satisfied of my night. It wasn’t anything special but a way of life for me now and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I see myself as a superhero, nearly indestructible. Now I will spend the next twelve hours tucked away from society and avoid any contact with natural sunlight, because I’ve come to find out that it does not bode well for my health.

            In these few hours I will be reading, studying various martial arts technics, learning new languages among the eight I already know, or maybe plan my future.

 

 7:00 am

        Time is not of the essence for me, time is of the endless.