The Easy One

The woman with the head wound was still screaming. She cowered on the marble tiles of the plaza, her left hand clamped to her bloody scalp as her right clutched the rim of the large fountain in the center of the square. Her smart skirt was torn, exposing most of her shapely thigh. Her wide, searching eyes darted left and right, desperate for help. She looked almost amusing, like something out of a slapstick routine. What choked the laughter were the large red stains discoloring the left half of her dark blonde mane and trendy white jacket. People were running here and there, lost in their own personal chaos, oblivious or unconcerned about her presence, concerned with their own survival.

Nate shifted the rifle to his other hand and looked over to the far side of the plaza. A pair of legs jutted out from under a table at the pizzeria. A loafer was missing from the right foot. Across the square, a well-dressed man lay face down in the spill of an overturned trash bin. Nate couldn't see his face, but the large red puddle

growing around his head suggested all that needed to be known--his shot had hit its mark

That's a nice suit, Nate noted as his eyes moved over the trashcan man. Damn shame it's ruined... Motion captured Nate's attention. A man in a black suit was lumbering toward the screaming woman. Her shrieks had finally been noticed. The man's movements were jerky and uncoordinated, as if he had just been shaken out of a daze. Nate shoved the gun's barrel through the third floor window and looked through the scope. The man's head immediately came into focus. Nate's finger was tightening around the trigger when the question of how many bullets he had left occurred to him. He paused and dipped down below the square of the window.

He ejected a cartridge from his M24E1 sniper rifle and counted the remaining rounds in the magazine. Three. Make `em count, Nate thought as he slammed the clip back into the rifle.

He was about to pop back above the windowsill when his eyes skittered across the room and found the body

of the maid. He chuckled at the thought of the fight. It must have looked comical--he, being caught off guard in his birthday suit, hair still wet from the shower, using a table lamp to club the chubby woman out of existence. Not such a funny sight now, though. The lamp he'd used to cave in her skull had left her face a gristly pulp. A few of her teeth lay scattered around her head and shoulders. Won't be sinking those into anyone else, Nate thought. Not that it'll do me any good. Nate sighed. He looked down at the part in the bath towel wrapped around his waist. The bloody ring of teeth marks scarring his left thigh mocked him, and he thought of the rumors he'd only half-believed an hour ago.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. This was supposed to be an easy one. One mark. Public place. Do the job and disappear in the pandemonium. Simple. Easy money. But then a different chaos had ensued, those stories from last week's tabloids--reports of events that had supposedly happened in various cities--had shambled right off the front page and into his hotel room. What he'd deemed bullshit yesterday had snuck

up and--almost literally--bit him in the ass today. After that, what was there to do but try to take out as many of the motherfuckers as he could before he became...No. Hell no! That wasn't going to happen! He'd take out a few, sure. Get as much payback as he could. But he'd save one round. Because there was no way, no fucking way...

Nate shook his head to clear it. His mind was becoming muddled and he was finding it hard to focus. Better hurry.

He crawled back into the window overlooking the plaza, positioning the rifle. He looked through the scope and found the man in the black suit, still working his way toward the screaming woman. Nate took a calming breath and steadied his aim.

A large flap of flesh--what had lately been the left cheek and lower lip--hung from the man's face. Animated by his stagger and swaying like a curtain in the breeze, the dangling piece of skin exposed his bloody gums and molars. Because of the wound, the man's snarl shifted and pulled the skin from his jaw to

one side, creating an effect that made Nate think of a stroke victim. Small ribbons of tissue were wedged between his teeth, and he had that glazed, vacant look in his eyes Nate was now beginning to think of as trademark.

The man was moving toward the woman more quickly now, no doubt locked in on her high pitched caterwauling. His arms were outstretched like an eager lover hurrying for an embrace, his fingers curled in anticipation. His teeth were bared, the tortured wound of his face transforming his mouth into a kind of crocodile grin. In another few seconds, he'd be tearing into her.

Nate squeezed the trigger. The man's head snapped back from the impact as he fell to the ground, motionless. Nate worked the lever, ejected the empty shell casing, and chambered a fresh round. Two.