Gray Shades of Evil

He rang the doorbell.

He looked back at me and smiled.

"Hot night!" he said in a near sexual excitement as he took off his cowboy hat and wiped his forehead.

He turned back to the door and a hard flick backwards of my right wrist dropped the handles into my hand. A hard turn of the wrist loosened the wire wrapped around the leather wristband. I twirled my wrist so the wire dropped its loops past my hand and jerked my hand up to untangle the coils. The move took less than a practiced second, and I tossed one of the handles to my left hand. I passed the handles to the opposite hands crossing the wire. I stepped forward and flipped the noose over Deputy Gus's uncovered head. He felt the touch of a fly's legs as the wire wrapped around his neck. The force of my knee hitting his upper back stopped him from turning around. I tightened the noose by jerking my hands outward. He instinctively pushed back against me, and I shifted to the side to turn his body driving him to the ground. With Deputy Gus on his stomach, I had greater leverage. I settled my weight on the knee in the middle of his upper back and cinched the garrote. He struggled, but his death had started with the first hard pressure of the wire. It had cut into him immediately and by the time his death's throes were over he was part of the way to decapitation.

I had a further use for the garrote so I untwined it from his neck with some difficulty and walked to the truck. I had a plastic bag for the purpose and deposited the wire and handles in it. Deputy Gus had not noticed my putting on the leather gloves in his excitement. Had he been more attentive the one shot silenced thirty-eight attached to my left wrist with the trigger wire on my belt would have blown his brains against the truck window.

No one in the house was aware of my actions, but I could hear the skittering of hungry rats.

I walked back to town.

Everyone was surprised to see me at the hotel. They watched as I walked past them to clean up. I was not marked by Deputy Gus's death, but I had to prepare for the most likely repercussions. I walked into the main area and sat down.

"Ice water, Sally," I said to her and sat down. "And some dinner, I think."

"Didn't you go out with Deputy Gus?" the mother, Melissa, asked sitting down across from me. I smiled at her; whatever the townswomen had going on she seemed to be the next volunteer in my sexual relief. I noticed the old man in uniform to my right.

I turned to look at him.

He nodded uncomfortably, and I wondered why Deputy Gus had stayed a Deputy when the Sheriff had incompetence written all over him. I guessed that Deputy sounded less threatening than Sheriff and bait cannot afford to be intimidating. It must have also helped to have such a stark comparison of idiot and knight in shining armor when someone had escaped the stalking shadow that had been Deputy Gus's brother.

"He had a family emergency. He mentioned it at the last place we visited and I insisted on walking back to town so that I would not keep him," I said.

"And he let you go?" Melissa's daughter asked, sitting down next to her mother. Her innocent blues had hope in them and I could almost taste her sexual inexperience.

"He didn't have a choice," I said to her seriously. "Family emergencies ARE private things."

They asked me more questions, and I felt the hope in them dying slowly as their fear told them that Deputy Gus had probably let me go for sport. Karen, the daughter, was the only one who held on to the hope.

Sally outdid herself in the food department as the conflict of my words, Gus's past actions, and what her woman's instincts said about the man she had fucked fought a war with each other.

Good food was something else I had been without for a few months.

Everyone heard the violent gunning of the truck as it roared into town. They looked at me fearfully. They retreated to create room as a cry of pain was released outside.

The stalking shadow's older brother entered the saloon dragging two bodies behind him. He was in emotional pain; he did not understand the anger and frustration he felt. He was bigger than the man I had shaved outside of town. His purpose was obvious; just when someone thought they could deal with the stalking shadow's size someone bigger peered over a shoulder.

He was a wounded lion who instinctively knew I had cast the spear into his side. He let of go of the bodies and charged me. I pushed the table towards him, and he barreled through it.

My sister had called me a bulldog. I was five-foot-seven and just over two hundred pounds of hard muscle. The real similarity was in attitude. Bulldogs were bred for bull baiting, and their method of killing was to clamp down on the nose. The bulldog would hold the bite until the bull drowned in its blood. The focus that had been bred into them makes bulldogs very hard to dislodge when they see red. I did not see red, but the room grayed and the bull in front of me was my existence. He tossed the remains of the table aside and rushed me again. I ducked under his outstretched arm and straightened his knee by placing my foot on it. He tripped and slid a couple of feet. He stood up to be met by the chair I crashed into his back. He was strong, and it only took a shake of the head for him to recover.

He was quick as he turned towards me. The kick to his jaw was fluid and began when his shoulder had begun to turn. He put his hands down on the ground. The kick required more than a shake. I let him climb to the edge of recovery before kicking in the lower area of his ribcage. He was built like a house and only grunted in reaction to what would have broken ribs in a normal man.

I thought about killing him with the drop dagger I had palmed when he walked into the room. He was unskilled though, and the townspeople needed to relearn the immediacy of fear.

It was a slow, brutal affair that left most of the saloon patrons blanched by the cold efficiency. The second time he was down his ribs did cave, which slowed him. It made breaking ribs on the other side easier. His roars gained the taint of fear and pain as he released them, more to brave himself than to express emotion.

The second time I hit him with a chair he collapsed into unconsciousness. I walked over to the Sheriff and removed the handcuffs from his belt. He took steps backwards as I approached, but the wall prevented him from escaping.

I made a show of telling the unconscious body his rights and cuffing his arms behind him. I pointed to the sycophants who were the most fearful in the room now that their protection lay dead on the ground. I had them pick up the live one by the arms. I pointed to other people, even the women. Their job was to drag the bodies of the dead men. I took the Sheriff's building keys off the belt I had gotten the handcuffs from.

"You can't do this," he said not talking about the keys.

"He assaulted a federal agent," I told him with a smile. "I believe those bodies are connected to my investigation into the disappearance of Agent Stewart."

I waited for him to say something but all he could do was shake his head dumbly while trying to recover from having his world turned inside out. I patted his face in a gesture of comfort. I led the procession of people deadened by fear and dead bodies to the Sheriff's office. I pointed to one cell for the sycophants and another for the dead bodies.

"Are you just going to leave them there?" Sally asked me as I locked the door of the cell with the bodies.

"They haven't ripened enough to be bait yet," I told her as I walked passed the people I had driven into stunned shock.

"No one goes in there." I said outside. They followed behind me to the hotel. I looked around the room until my eyes touched Melissa, the mother. I signaled her up the stairs and her eyes widened. She nearly shook her head but changed her mind when the sycophants started to straighten the mess I had made.

"Go home, Karen," she said behind her shoulder as she headed to my room. No one said anything and now they knew better than to try to stop me.

Melissa started the shower water running. She stripped her clothing off unceremoniously and stepped into the stream. She turned towards me to watch as I undressed. Her eyes widened at the three pieces of hardware that I put on top of my clothing; she had missed the first two. She was softer and rounder than Sally's fear tightened curves but was exactly what a man hopes for after beating someone half to death.

She did not argue as I soaped her body quickly and had her do the same for me. I was hard in her hands and decided against waiting for the bed. I was still seeing gray and her ass felt good in my hands as she tried to push down her fears with fevered kisses on my neck and chest. I walked backwards into the stream of water and moved my hands on her body to wash the soap off. I grabbed her wrists and turned her to face the wall of the shower. She gasped in surprise but did not try to get away when I held her wrists in place on the wall with one hand. I trailed fingers down the center of her back, in between buttocks and around to her pussylips. She gasped as she felt me play with them gently to get an excited response to the fear beating with her heart. She could not combat the fight/flight/fuck instinct, and her body produced what it thought was necessary to convince me there were better things to do than harm. Her scent overpowered the air. I dipped down and placed myself at her entrance. I was ungentle with my penetration. The fight adrenaline was not gone from my body adding impetus to my first thrust.

She grunted and tried to escape the feel of my body opening her. She had nowhere to go with the wall in front of her and me behind. She struggled anyway so I let go of her wrists and grabbed a fistful of hair. I pulled her head back and pushed forwards with my hips. She let out a yelp of protest but stopped her movement. I pulled myself almost out of her slowly and fucked into her hard again. I grabbed her hip with my other hand to angle her body better. I held her in that position as I moved in and out of her.

Slow strokes outward and powerful strokes in.

She was watching me with trepidation but soon after I forced her to be still her eyes glazed. She had been held up in fear response for too long, and her body wanted release. She came suddenly and tried to bring her head down. I held her back to watch as pleasure took her over. I fucked her with no control as her body orgasmed.

She had another orgasm when I thickened inside of her. I let go of her hair, pulled my hips back and forced her completely against the wall as my body released into her. She pushed back against me while trying to climb the wall as her second orgasm pounded into her body. I filled her with myself but had enough control to keep us from falling to the floor of the shower.

She was soundly asleep when I woke up in the dead of night. I dressed quickly in the clothes that had been prepared and climbed out the window to sit on the window ledge. It was the fourth floor, but I pushed my weight off the ledge. The downward slope off the ground helped as I absorbed the impact with a paratrooper's collapse. I relaxed like I had been trained and let gravity run its course. I rolled down the slope and felt the clothing protect me from tearing forces. I came to a rest at the bottom and made a mental inventory of body parts before standing up. I was sore and would need a couple of nights sleep to recover properly but was functional. I moved quietly around the hotel towards the Sheriff's office.

The brother was awake and had begun an effort to escape by breaking his cell door. He took a couple of steps back as he saw me enter. He roared in false courage and crashed his body into his cell door. I caught the faint step of hesitation he made as his body fought his mind to prevent more pain. I waited to see if the Sheriff had decided to keep his guest company.

I walked over to the gun case and pulled down one of the shotguns. I approached the cell, and he took a couple more steps back. The firing of the shotgun was nearly a crushing sound in the silent confines of the office and the town. The cell door made a good brace for the gun as I emptied it into his body.

I opened the door to the sheriff's office but no light had been turned on to investigate. I tossed the shotgun on the roof of a one-floor building. I wanted it out of sight for a couple of days, but it would make no difference if it were found.

I went back to the hotel and climbed up the storm drain of the adjoining building. It was small jump from the roof of that building onto the stronger drain of the hotel. I climbed up to the roof as quickly as I could. I moved towards my window and looked down. The windows were built to last and they had passed my weight test. It was a short drop to the top of the window. I carefully stepped down to the ledge and let myself into the room. I took my clothes off, put them away and stepped into the cold stream of the shower.

Melissa did not like my cold presence at her back and tried to move away. She woke up suddenly as I pulled her back. She groaned and looked at the clock. I had set it back an hour for that exact situation. My lips drowned her next protest out as I settled myself between her legs. There was no other protest as her body quickly heated up to the warming comfort of a half-asleep fuck. I turned the clock to the correct time before I fell asleep against her back.

The pounding of the door woke Melissa up. The approach to the door had set my sensor off, but I turned it off before the alarm became audible. The Sheriff was smart enough not to barge in which I almost thanked him for. I was sure that his blood would have caused Melissa to vomit that early in the morning.

"Agent Lyndell!" he yelled through the door. Melissa looked at me frightened but I dressed slowly.

I opened the door with my.45 held at the small of my back. He tried to walk into the room but was stopped by my hand on his chest.

"I have a guest," I said to him in a quiet voice. He was close to being rude, and therefore dead.

"I need to know where you were last night around 2 am," he said aggressively.

It was too far so I met his eyes with mine. He jumped back and broke the eye contact.

"I'll be downstairs in a couple of minutes," I told him closing the door in his face. Melissa covered herself in the blanket and nearly ran into the bathroom. I waited for her to finish and brushed my teeth. She left the room while I was shaving but she paused in the bathroom door to say goodbye.

I prepared for the day's events and walked downstairs. They were waiting for me and Sally set down a plate of breakfast for me. The evening's excitement had relaxed her even more. It showed in the perfection of her eggs over easy and the evenness of the butter spread on the toast.

"Where were you last night?" the Sheriff asked me abruptly.

"Why?" I asked around the taste of fresh butter.

"The Merchant boy was killed in his cell," he said forcefully.

I looked at him, and he got the message to moderate his voice.

"What time?" I asked him. I did not expect him to have a medical report since the only doctor in town had hands that trembled from the alcoholic stupor he spent life in.

"People heard gunshots at the office around 2 am," the Sheriff said.

Melissa looked at me confused remembering the time on the clock when I woke her up for some sex play. Everyone noticed the look on her face, but Sally speaking interrupted their thoughts.

"I was awake at the time, Sheriff," she said carefully. "I could not sleep so was cleaning up down here and no one passed me by. I heard the shots and looked out the door but..."

She did not want to admit she had been afraid to go outside. A part of her hoped that she knew what was happening but did not have the courage to voice the desire yet.

"We were also awake at that time, Sheriff," Melissa said. "I guarantee he wasn't nowhere near that office."

She blushed after she finished saying it so everyone understood why we were too busy to hear shots. Karen blushed also, but there was jealousy in the way she looked at her mother.

"If you didn't kill that boy who did?" the Sheriff asked as if the question would point the finger back at me. The room was silent since it was a question none of them could answer.

"The 'boy' had quite a few people in this town terrorized," I answered the Sheriff. He looked at me trying to make sense of my words.

I shrugged.

"A scared person can do scary things to a cornered rat," I told them.

They sat quietly watching me eat my breakfast.

"Aren't you going to do anything?" the Sheriff asked finally.

"I'm here to find a missing FBI agent. You're the one with the pile of dead bodies," I said calmly.

"Don't you want to look at the body?" he asked.

"You left them in the cells?" I asked him.

"Well, you put them there!" he nearly shouted.

"I didn't expect you to leave them there, Sheriff" I said patiently.

The women in the room broke out into giggles. The Sheriff blushed angrily and leaned towards me threateningly. I put the business end of the.45 against his nose and pushed him back.

"I would reconsider the words you were about to say to me," I said in a toneless voice. "I have an agent to locate and the lack of cooperation I have come across is not appreciated. Threats will NOT be tolerated."

"You can't... do that!" he managed to stutter out.

"Why did you put your hand on your gun?" I asked him gently. The occupants in the room recovered enough from my actions to gasp at my knowledge.

The Sheriff's eyed turned from fear to terror as he realized I would kill him if he gave me another reason. He looked at me, and his eyes begged for his life.

"Take your gun out and put it on the table," I ordered him. He complied quickly and I pulled it to me.

"I don't want you wearing a gun again until I leave," I told him.

"But that will leave me defenseless."

I cocked the gun.

"I will protect you, Sheriff." I told him. He looked even more afraid at that.

"You wanted me to look at the bodies?" I asked him while putting away the guns. He nodded dumbly and I got up. People looked like they were going to follow behind us so I started towards the door. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the sunlight and noticed the movement out of the corner of my eye.

He moved swiftly, but I had been expecting him. I turned my body away from him and raised the double-barreled shotgun pistol. The boy had given me enough warning to cock both barrels as I drew it. My arm was fully extended by the time he leaped at me with his knife stretched out. He took two loads of ball shot in the chest. I let the force of the gun spin me backwards so that the.45 was pointing towards him. It was unnecessary; he lay on his back dead.

Everyone was stunned.

I walked over to the boy and looked down at him. He was dirty; the next generation of madness was written all over his face. I heard a clear sigh of relief behind me and turned to look at Karen. There were tears in her eyes but they were for herself. I looked at the boy again. He was old enough to have discovered girls, and looking at Karen, who anyplace else would have been too old for the boy, I knew which one he wanted to discover.

Melissa turned her daughter's face away.

"Who is this boy?" I asked the Sheriff.

"That's the youngest Merchant," he said looking like he was seconds from getting sick. I waited for him to recover and smiled.

"I'm going to have to visit this Merchant family," I said loud enough for everyone to hear. "Not today though, I think this is enough for today. It's tough killing a little one."

I walked past the Sheriff and looked at him.

"You're going to want to tell the parents," I told him. "Clean this mess up, too."