Revolver Relations
If Clark Merrow could make love to a revolver, he would have slept with his by now. Merrow’s green eyes aligned down the barrel of his favorite and most trusted revolver. He was eyeing it for any flaws that may have newly appeared on it since its last usage. His revolver was his most trusted ally; it had saved his life many times before. It could be said that this chrome plated death bringer was the love of Clark’s life. The revolver and things to be done with said revolver were his life; there wasn’t time for anything else. He foolishly tried to cover up this obsession with his revolver by complementing it with a knife, always hidden along his left ankle. Clark stood tall at just over six feet, with an agile build; his long arms could snake into his left ankle sock at a moment’s notice to change the tides of battles back to his control. Merrow was standing in his plain bedroom, just a bed and nightstand with an alarm clock plus lamp. He stood in front of the mirror, adjusting his suit as he was preparing for his next day of work. An extra second was taken for Clark to observe his eyes. He could see right through himself with his empty, green eyes. A quick shake of the head to get the cobwebs out, and Merrow strolled out of his apartment to his car. Ignition on, and Merrow sped away for the day.
*****
Daniel Jacobs was always calm, cool, composed. In the heat of battle, he was always level-headed, always the strategist. His blue eyes eyed the handguns in each of his hand. He was deadly accurate with his handguns in battle. Opponents fill with fear when they’re at the other end of the barrels of his guns. He nodded in approval and slid a gun into each one of his holsters attached to his belt. He adjusted his crimson tie to a snug fit around his neck and stepped into front of the mirror.
“I look good, as always.” He smirked and ran his hand through his hair one quick time.
Jacobs was always confident, because he knew if that confidence was questioned for even a second, he could die. He snaps out of his thought process to the sound of a car horn blaring outside. Daniel buttons up the last button on his undershirt and walks outside to the car. In the car sits Merrow staring out of the passenger window at him.
“Another day of work, eh partner?” Merrow pokes his head towards the passenger window.
“That’s why I’m standing here.” Jacobs opens the passenger door and steps into the car, he looks over at Merrow. “Let’s do this.” Jacobs rolls down the window as they drive off from his house.
As they’re riding along, Jacobs slides some leather gloves onto his hands, pressing out each crease and pocket of air on the glove. He bends his fingers, trying to get the maximum comfort that he can get from his gloves. The gloves were only one piece in the process of their industry. Clark Merrow and Daniel Jacobs were what people would call “mercenaries.” But they never took fond of that word. They never played for the bad guys. The role in their business offers was always to play spoiler to the bad guy. Today would be no different for them.
Merrow’s hip begins to vibrate as his continues driving the car. He answers his cell phone. He nods often, agreeing with the speaker on the phone just as often. Jacobs smirks and looks over at Merrow and asks jokingly, “Chief Quimby?” He laughs as Merrow covers the phone.
“Jackass.” Merrow smirks as well and continues in on the phone conversation.
He finishes the phone conversation, closes his phone up, slides it back into his pocket, looks out the passenger window, out his window, and then at Jacobs. He smiles. “We’ve got work today!”
“Awesome, what is it?” Jacobs pulls one gun out of its holster and eyes it up and down, dusting it off, even though not a speckle of dust is on it.
“Apparently, there’s some guy…” Merrow stares at Jacobs leaning into the backseat. “What are you doing?”
Jacobs reaches into the backseat and pulls out a small case, about the size that haircutting clippers might be in.
“Oh…” Merrow looks back towards the road, his question answered.
Jacobs opens the reflective metal case and inside, a pair of silencers. He grabs one, and closes the case. He looks at the silencer for a moment, and begins to attach it to his handgun. “Only one today, I want stealth in one hand, fury in the other.” Jacobs gives self-approval of his choice and continues screwing on the silencer. Black reinforced steel handgun, black handcrafted silencer, becoming a silent tool of destruction.
“So, this guy…apparently he’s in an abandoned warehouse about 10 minutes from here. He’s a real piece of work, too.” Merrow scratches his nose before continuing. “Yeah, well this guy has two females held up in the warehouse, and he wants to show that world what kind of killer he can be.” He rubs his temple. “But his ‘gimmick’ is that he wants to do it in front of people. So…when we get there, if he sees us, he’ll probably kill both of them.”
Jacobs nods, giving a look as if he understands the plan being laid before him. “So we need to get in, take him out, and get out before anyone has a chance to die?”
Merrow nods. “Pretty much.”
“Alright, lets turn on the radio. Pass some time.” Jacobs grabs for the knobs and buttons on the radio console. “Here we go. A Rush song.”
Merrow stares at him. He raises an eyebrow, “Do you think we have time for 2112 right now?”
“Yes.” Jacobs whistles as he tries to avoid making eye contact so his lies can’t be read.
“No we don’t.” Merrow smacks Jacobs’ hand out of the way and switches the song to another. “There we go…uh…uh…ah! Here we go a good song.” He turns the volume up.
“Jacobs stares blankly at the radio, then with a look of disgust at Merrow, “Jukebox hero? You’re kidding right?” Jacobs just presses the power button.
“What’s wrong with Foreig…?” Merrow gets cut off.
“What isn’t wrong with Foreigner?” Jacobs scoffs at the thought of Foreigner.
“Why the hell are we arguing about Foreigner?” Merrow stares at the road.
“Good point, let’s just go and kill this bad guy.” Jacobs fills with excitement as he remembers they’re going to stop a bad guy today, hopefully.
Their timing couldn’t have been any more exact, as they had just pulled up to the abandoned warehouse where the psychopath was currently residing.
“Alright, it’s business time.” Merrow pulls his sunglasses out of his suit pocket and puts them on.
Jacobs pops his neck, grabs his sunglasses out of the glove box, puts them on as well, and readies the handgun he’s currently holding.
They park the car in the empty lot and step out of the door. Almost as soon as they step out of the door, gunshots are fired from the third floor in their general direction. Merrow and Jacobs hide behind the doors of the car.
“Damn, he knows we’re here.” Merrow pulls his revolver out and stares at it, thinking whether to shoot back or not.
“He’s been expecting us, I bet. Not us, but anyone in general.” Jacobs tries peeking over the door and hears another gunshot. It hits the ground beside him. “Something isn’t right. This guy isn’t even aiming at the car.” He looks at Merrow.
“What? Something isn’t right? Let’s not go and do anything stupid right now.” Merrow glares at Jacobs.
“Trust me on this one.” Jacobs stands up from behind the door and slowly walks towards the entrance of the warehouse. Gunshots are fired at him, but none of them connect, they just hit to the left or right of him. “He wants us alive to watch.”
Merrow nods and follows him towards the warehouse, being shot at as they walk there. “I just can’t help but be paranoid as I walk and get shot at.”
Just as Merrow finishes that sentence, the psychopath stops shooting at them, pauses for a moment, and shoots a bird out of the sky.
“Wow.” Merrow runs into the warehouse ahead of Jacobs.
Jacobs follows him inside and it’s nothing but a hollowed shell of what used to be a warehouse inside. The warehouse is a dusty mangled mess of metal hanging from everywhere. “Wow, there’s…nothing in here. I can see the stairs over there.” Jacobs points at a rusty contraption of metal, the stairs.
“Well, let’s get in and get out, this places gives me the creeps.” Jacobs walks over to the rusted knot of metal and climbs it to the second floor.
“Is it sturdy?” Jacobs ponders out loud.
“Yeah, come on.” Merrow waves him up the stairs. “This lunatic is up there.” He points up to the third floor where an old office room is still standing, rusted.
“There’s the ladder over there.” Jacobs points his gun at another bent, rusty metal heap. Jacobs pokes it a couple of times with his gun. The ladder gives off a rusted, dying creak. “This thing better hold my weight.” He starts to climb. He makes it up fine.
“Alright, I’m tired of these games, let’s get in there, destroy this guy, and save the day one more time.” Merrow grabs the ladder and just throws himself up to the next floor, not wasting a moment.
They both get to their feet on the third floor and dust themselves off. As soon as they turn towards the office, gunshots are fired at them, this time much closer than before.
“About time you could make it to the show!” The psycho laughs as he fires off random handgun shots at Merrow and Jacobs. He shrieks and fires three more times. The last shot hits some metal, setting off a loud resonating ring in the building.
Merrow covers his ears for a moment. “Son of a bitch, that was loud.” Merrow looked annoyed, whips his revolver to point at the guy, and fires one shot. The shot hits the right handgun of the psycho. The gun flies out of his hand. The psycho shakes his hand in pain and darts into the office room.
“You shouldn’t have done that one. Teehee.” The psychopath yells over the dilapidated walls of the office room.
Merrow makes hand motions towards the office with his gun and Jacobs nods in agreement. They walk slowly towards the office door. They reach the door and each take a side of it. Merrow tries to peek in the window of the door for a second and as soon as he looks, a bullet flies out through the window, sending shards of glass past Merrow and Jacobs. Jacobs grabs the door knob, and opens the door.
“Trust me.” Jacobs whispers at Merrow and he rolls into the room, Merrow right behind him.
They roll into the room guns pointed at the psycho. Merrow has his revolver pointed at him, Jacobs, his 2 pistols. There sit 2 girls, tied to metal chairs, the psycho pointing a gun at both of them. The psycho laughs, psychotically. He smiles, and puts a gun to the left temple of one of the girls.
“Long gone are the days of old where you could cuddle in security with your stuffed animals as you sleep at night! Today is a day for storytelling, and today I tell my story!” As soon as he finishes the last syllable, he pulls the trigger of the gun against the girl’s temple and a bullet enters. The bullet exits. A superheated mixture of blood, brains, bone, skin and hair fly out the opposite temple of one girl as she falls to the ground, brainless, lifeless.
Merrow and Jacobs’ eyes open wide and they open fire on the psycho, Firing 4 shots each into his body, and the psycho falls over dead, his body still twitching on the ground, every last drop of his blood flowing out of the wounds. His body twitches one last time and stops moving.
Jacobs looks at the dead girl next to his body, shakes his head, and utters a soundless word.
Merrow pulls out his knife and walks up to the other girl, tied and bound to the metal chair still. He begins to cut through her bindings. He gets her first unbound first, and then begins to cut her wrists free. As soon as her wrists are free, she jumps up and wraps her arms in a hug around Merrow. He holds his arms out, not hugging her back, and looks at Jacobs puzzled, and mouths out a question, “what do I do?”
Jacobs shrugs. He turns back to the dead bodies and stares. He shrugs again.
*****
Jacobs pops the cork out of a bottle of champagne and starts pouring it into glasses. “Another job well done, eh partner?” He shakes up the bottle and sprays it at him.
Merrow nods half-heartedly. “I feel bad about the other girl. Was there anything we could have done? I just can’t help but think about it just a little bit. I know it happens in our job, but you know.” He sips from his glass, pondering.
“It happens, and there isn’t much we can do about it. Except stay alive, so we can keep the next innocent victim from becoming a victim. We stop the bad guys so good people can live. Then we get paid, and then we do it again. It’s our job, a circle of blood.” Jacobs drinks his glass and fills it again.
“I guess you’re right, I’m going to check on the girl in the guest room. Man, do you see that? We saved some girls’ life and I don’t even know her damn name.” Merrow frowns and shakes his head. He leaves the living room and walks down the hall to the door of the guest room. He knocks on the door, and lets himself in.
In the room sits a scared girl, staring out the window, there was a thunderstorm outside, rain pouring down, she was sitting with her knees to her chest. She looks over at him, and then back out the window. “Did you want something?” She asks him while looking out the window.
“Yeah, I don’t even know your name. What is it?” Merrow scratches his head wondering if he should have asked that question.
“Melissa.” She replied, still staring out the window into the night scenery.
Merrow nodded and tried to think of another question. He raised his finger to ask another question and opened his mouth, but then put his finger down and closed his mouth, looking socially awkward. He does this a couple more times before getting to a question he feels comfortable asking. “Are you okay?”
Melissa looked over to him, and turned on the bed, letting her legs hang off the edge of the bed. She looked at her hands, and then back up at Merrow. “I guess I’m alright. As best as I can be with the conditions I’ve been in recently. I mean, I did see my friend get her head blown apart earlier today.” She sighed as she finished that sentence.
“I’m sorry she had to die. If there’s anything I can do for you…” Before Merrow could finish his sentence she stepped off the bed and latched to his neck, hugging him again. Merrow looked around, still holding his arms out not returning the hug back. He takes one arm and pats her on the back a couple of times, just staring out the window as he does this. She stops hugging him.
“Thank you.” Melissa looks into Merrow’s eyes, and then proceeds to give him a light kiss on the lips.
Merrow looks around awkward and confused. “What was that for?” He didn’t understand women at all.
“It’s for saving me, and just because, you’re a cute guy.” She winked as she finished her statement.
“Alright, I appreciate that…I guess. I’m going to let you be now, you should get some sleep.” Merrow smiles and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him. He mouths an inaudible word. He returns to the living room, where Jacobs is clearly drunk.
“Hey there partner.” Jacobs’s voice is slurred as he tries to sound sober. “What took so long in there?” He nudges Merrow as he questions him. “Having some fun with the girl?” Jacobs falls onto the couch in drunkenness.
“She kissed me. It’s been a long time since anyone has kissed me; it’s been a long time since I wanted anyone to kiss me. I didn’t want her to then.” Merrow shakes his head in confusion as he talks. “Why am I telling you this? You’re drunk.” He rolls his eyes at Jacobs.
“Dude, you should go for her. It’s clear she’s totally into you man. I mean, she kissed you.” Jacobs put an emphasis on kiss as he stumbled through drunken words. “Go for it man.” He hiccups and falls over on the couch.
“Right, I’m going to just take this as you are drunk. Screw it, I’m going to sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, partner.” Merrow rolls his eyes again and walks down to a bedroom to go to bed for the night.
*****
“The psychopath, he injected me with something before he died. Before you two came, he injected both of us with something into our necks. It hurt and didn’t feel entirely liquid. I don’t know what it was, and I didn’t see it.” Melissa confessed to Merrow. “I’m afraid that it was something that is going to kill me anyhow. Won’t you please help save me from this?” Her eyes filled with tears as she continued pouring herself to Merrow. “I’m so scared.”
*****
Clark Merrow awoke from his sleep in a cold sweat, wondering what he had just dreamed. “Injected with something? What the hell.” He hopped out of the bed and put on his pants. He rubs his eyes and scratched his head before walking out into the living room. Jacobs was still passed out on the couch. He looked over to the table, there was a letter sitting on it, written in bad handwriting. “I have the stupid girl. She’s going to die. You killed one psychopath, guess it’s time for you to kill another, or try. But which psychopath will you kill? I’m going to kill her. Unless you want to save her? Ha ha hah. Bring yourself to me, watch her die; we have a story to finish. Unless you’re afraid of the ending of the story? You are afraid, because she’s going to die, and you won’t be able to save her. Come back to the warehouse. It’ll be a sight to see her die, just like her friend did.”
“What is this stupid bullshit?” Merrow puts the note down, and walked down the hall to the room where the girl was sleeping. He opens the door and the room is empty, no one is inside. His window is broken and window is blowing in, through the cracked glass. “Son of a bitch, this crazy bastard actually kidnapped her. Oh man, why can’t I just have one normal day where I don’t have to kill anyone? I’ll go save this stupid girl and I’m going to lay a beating down on this psychopath when I get a hold of him too.” Merrow fills with anger and walks back out to the living room, and pokes at Jacobs. “You awake? No? Alright, you’ll wake up and see the letter, and when you do, you know where to go.” Merrow puts the letter near Jacobs so he’ll know when he wakes up. He puts on a shirt, his suit jacket, grabs the keys and walks out the door to the car. He hops into the car and speeds off almost as fast as he got in.
*****
Merrow pulls up to the empty warehouse parking lot. He puts on his belt and slides his gun into his pocket. He attaches a few rings of ammo for his revolver to his belt and puts on his gloves one more time. He stops and takes a deep breath. He lets out a big sigh of breath. “This is such a dumb idea, but whatever, lets go do this.” He closes the car door and walks into the warehouse. Just as rusty and metal as it was yesterday. There are some new holes in the ceiling though, where Merrow looks up and sees grey clouds moving in. He paces towards the stairs, looking around with his gun ready to make sure he isn’t ambushed by some psychopath on his way up. He climbs up the first set of stairs and looks around some more. The clouds are increasingly changing to grey, and thick grey clouds. “Let it rain…” Merrow whispers to himself. Merrow sneaks to the next staircase and climbs them to the third floor, the same floor with the office room. Merrow sits at the top of the stairs for a moment before peering over, there sits the psychopath with Melissa, outside of the office. He’s staring directly at the staircase, staring right at Merrow.
“Come sir, come sit down. For tonight, we sit down with death to dine.” The psychopath motions for Merrow to come over and sit with him. “Before we finish this story, an important piece of the story I must tell you first. No one is going to die yet.” The psychopath laughs as he says die.
“He must already have me in a trap…” Merrow shakes his head and reluctantly walks over to the psychopath.
*****
Jacobs pulls up to the warehouse in his car, guns in hand and he hops out of the door. He’s in his suit, and sunglasses. He looks around for a second before looking up to the heavy grey skies. He nods and takes his sunglasses off, revealing hung over eyes. He dashes into the warehouse, and flies up the first set of stairs. He stops for a moment to quiet his steps down, not to reveal himself so easily. He tip toes across the second floor to the next staircase and climbs up it. He peeks above the top and sees the psychopath, just waiting there, with Melissa beside him. Jacobs readies both of his guns and climbs the final stairs. “I see I’ve found the next contestant for target practice.” Jacobs aims both of his guns at his head. “How do you want to die today? And before I do kill you, I’d like to inform you that you made my hangover a lot worse by waking me with this psychopath hostage taking crap.”
The psychopath smiles a wide tooth grin. “Relax and take a deep breath now. Believe the lies. When you wake up, we’ll all seem nice.” The psychopath holds his hand up to a rather pointless effect. Nothing happened.
Jacobs heard the click of the hammer of a revolver. Then the barrel of a revolver pressed against the knot on the back of his head. Jacobs closes his eyes.
“Hey partner.” Merrow pressed the gun to Jacobs’ head.
“What the hell is going on, why do you have a gun to my head?” Jacobs yells.
“That guy over there, the psychopath. He had a story to tell me. And I listened, and well, that story, well let’s just say it’s a fairy tale. This fairy tale has me falling in love with that stupid girl over there. But that stupid girl over there has a bomb injected into her neck right now. If that psychopath dies, she dies, because of course he’s a psycho and has the switch to the bomb and will press it if any harm comes to him. It’s a long and stupid complicated process, but I want to be a hero to her. I mean, you told me to go for it. After all, she did kiss me. So I’m going to save her.” Merrow shakes his head as he continues to hold his revolver to the head of Jacobs. “So put the guns down.”
Jacobs puts his guns on the ground. “We’re all on sale, aren’t we?” He asks Merrow.
“I guess so, partner.” Merrow continues pressing the barrel into his head. “Maybe this time I’ll fly?”
“And if I hit the ground?” Jacobs returns an equally cryptic question.
“It’s the way we all die.” Merrow responds even more cryptically.
Jacobs quickly leans to the left, grabs another handgun out of his pant leg, spins around, smacks Merrow in the face with the barrel of the gun, and jumps off the nearby railing down to the second floor.
Merrow shakes off the hit, wiping his cheek off. A clap of thunder and water begins to leak through the rusted holes in the ceiling of the warehouse. It’s drizzling outside. “Hey partner, say hello to the rain!” He smirks as he looks over the rail for Jacobs.
“Enter rain, jackass. I long for the summer!” Jacobs loads his gun up with a clip and looks at the third floor, trying to measure up where Merrow is.
“In just a year another storm will come, to wash away an inch more blood.” Merrow yells the line as he spots Jacobs over the rail and takes a shot at him.
Jacobs dodges the shot with a roll towards the staircase. “This old world has seen the worst of us.” Jacobs shoots randomly up the stairs, not hitting anything but the ceiling, putting new holes in it.
Merrow shakes his head. “Come up here and fight like a man. In two seconds I will hit the ground.” He readies his revolver at his side, allowing Jacobs time to walk up the stairs.
Jacobs walks up the stairs and there is Merrow, waiting for him at the other end of the hall. The rain starts to fall down onto the two of them through the new bullet holes in the ceiling. “Then my eyes will flicker, and something has changed.” He whispers to himself, and then looks at Merrow. “Standing in front you, partner.”
Merrow smirks. “Partner.” He starts to walk a slow circle, and Jacobs mirrors the direction.
“I’ve only got one question for you.” Jacobs looked around the room.
“Yeah?” Merrow taps his fingers on his revolver.
“We’re going to fight here, aren’t we?” Jacobs points at the ground.
“Yeah…I’ve got to be her hero.” Merrow points at Melissa.
“Her, and that psychopath over there, they’re just people.” Jacobs shrugged.
Merrow grabs his revolver and points it at Jacobs. “You’re just a person too. I’ve just made a choice, that’s all.” He tilts his head, popping his neck.
“A dumb choice. Make your move.” Jacobs aims his handgun at Merrow.
“Alright then, we’ll see who the dumb one is. I got myself into this predicament and I expect to get out of this predicament.” Merrow pulls the hammer back on the revolver. He aims it at Jacobs’ head. He closes his eyes, teeters for a moment, and fires his revolver. A gunshot is heard. He opens his eyes. Melissa lay on the ground, dead. Bullet wound to her head. Jacobs stands there with his eyes wide open staring at Merrow. The psychopath sits there, jaw to the floor and eyes puzzled. Jacobs collects his thoughts, looks around, tucks his gun under his arm aiming at the psychopath and puts three shots into his chest and neck. The psychopath falls over dead; he clutches the button in his hand and presses it. A small explosion comes from the neck of the already dead Melissa.
Jacobs dives over the railing again, this time falling to the first floor. Jacobs lies on the floor, catching his breath from the fall.
Merrow looks over the railing at shoots three shots at Jacobs. “We’re not done yet here. I told you we’re going to fight. This is all your fault to begin with, you told me to go after her because she was ‘into me’ I’m going to take it out of your ass that I had to shoot some dumb girl in the face! Merrow runs down the stairs, all the way to the first floor, and stands opposite the warehouse from Jacobs. “Get up. We’re going to have ourselves an old fashioned gun fight now.” Merrow lets Jacobs get to his feet.
Jacobs smirks. He starts to toss his gun from hand to hand, occasionally twirling it as well.
Merrow scratches his temple as he watches Jacobs twirl his gun around, looking like a jackass. Jacobs usually looks like one when he flaunts his gun handling abilities. But Merrow knows it’s just an elaborate trick before he puts a bullet deep within someone’s body.
There it was, the gun stop flipping around. A flash of the barrel, the sound of a bullet leaving its metal home and finding a new one in flesh.
Merrow glanced down at his thigh. He could smell the light crispiness of his flesh being burned by the bullet. “You did all of that just to shoot me in the leg?”
Jacobs pointed the gun at Merrow again. “I could shoot you in the face if you’d like.” He waved the handgun at Merrow.
Merrow falls over and groans in agony, full of pain. “My leg! The pain!” He took in a deep breath to hide his smirk. He was playing a trick on Jacobs.
Jacobs lowers his gun and stares. “Get up, I know you’re faking it.”
Merrow laid on the ground still. Jacobs shakes his head and walked over to the prone Merrow, who is grabbing his leg still. Jacobs hunches over. “Get up, now.”
Merrow let go of his leg, reached to his ankle and pulled out his knife out of the sock, and jabbed it three inches deep into Jacobs’ leg.
Jacobs sits down and begins to pull the knife out of his leg. “Son of a bitch, I should have known better.” He spits at Merrow.
Merrow limps up to his feet, blood running down from his leg. “I guess we’re even then, ass.” He brushes himself off and starts to walk away from Jacobs.
“Where you going?” Jacobs finally got the knife out.
“To fuck my revolver.” Merrow limped away, never looking back at Jacobs. “See you around, partner.”
