"All right, so we're clear on the play, yes?" Big Boy asked. "No one's having any second thoughts, I trust. Good. That motherfucker has it coming. He's had it coming for a long time. And tonight we execute."
"Um, Sarge," Dizzy interjected, "maybe tonight's not the best time to do this. Billy and Herc were killed yesterday. That asshole is going to be vigilant. Whatever happened to the element of suprise?"
The others -- Floyd and Rusty -- hung about beneath the streetlight, afraid to speak up; but it was clear that they shared Dizzy's apprehension. This mission was suicide.
Big Boy knew how they felt. Hell, he felt the same way. But, as Dizzy had correctly stated, Billy and Herc were brutally massacred the day prior, and, not two days before that, Pip, Ruggero, and Francis had met similar fates. Someone had to pick up the pieces of this dwindled unit. It was survival or extinction, and time was running out.
One way or the other, there would be blood.
"You fucking pussies, all of you," Big Boy nearly spat. "I look up at the sky tonight and I see clouds. What I don't see are rain, lightning bolts, gusts of wind, or the promise of another few weeks of similar conditions. This is a golden opportunity: the only one we have. We sit pat, we die. We make our move tonight, we may die, surely; but there's also the chance of victory. And it's not small. I've been on reconnaissance here more times than I've screwed your sisters, which is to say I've been here a lot. It's Sunday night: that asshole will be so full of alcohol that you'll practically get drunk from the scent the moment you enter. He's going to be sleeping like a baby. So, if you're ascairt of some passed-out rummy, tell me right now. A shithead like that doesn't even deserve this honor."
Floyd, Rusty, and Dizzy had no choice but to concede. Big Boy sensed their resignment and laid out the play one final time, lest they again consider mutiny.
"Like I said, Floyd, you go for the side window. Dizzy, you have the front one. It's the second floor, but it's not too tough. Rusty has the door, which is a piece of cake. Rusty, if you get in first, hang about the vestibule. Do not trigger the light sensor. That's some moth shit. I'll come in from the bathroom drain. Don't worry about me: the bathroom door'll be open. Guy's got a dog who pisses in there, so he leaves it open.
Once I'm in, I'll check for you and give a signal. Don't descend until you hear it, got it?"
---
Big Boy knew the others didn't stand a fighting chance. They were a diversion, fodder. The windows he'd tried already. Sealed shut. The Door? Rusty would -- if he even flew into the right apartment, which was unlikely given that bastard's age -- enter and take a stab at the first piece of flesh he could see: usually the foot sole or the knuckle, i.e. not prime real estate.
But what Big Boy didn't expect when he flew out of the bathroom drain to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine -- or maybe I just don't want to -- was that his mark, one Oliver Ugrath, had a technology foreign to his primitive knowledge.
Big Boy didn't care, either, for he was in a state of ecstasy. Forgetting his hunger, his bloodlust, he clung to the wall and started tweaking.
Utopi___
"Better luck next time, cocksuckers," Oliver laughed as he washed mosquito splat from his hands.
---
Rusty. Tried and true. Lived.
Not for long, but he lived.
He made it past the front door. He hung around the vestibule ceiling. And when Big Boy met his demise and Oliver went to bed with a complacent smile on his face, that's when the dive bombing attack took place.
Rusty, the old man, was never very swift nor nimble, but he knew which spots to hit. So when Oliver woke up with small bites on his kneecaps, ankles, and, yes, eyelid, he knew he had been bitten.
---
Oliver. Young, dumb, and full of come.
Japanese enchephalitis would claim him at the age of 31.
With love, Rusty.
Note: Yes, I'm aware that only female mosquitoes bite. But -- word to Dostoevsky and David Simon -- I can't write women, so whaddya gonna do?
