Chapter 4 of my book, “The Beginning of the End”

Chapter 4

“I’m Out?”

Abaddon exited the Erebus as if he was floating on the cement surface. He stared into the fall sun with a smile from ear to ear. Pausing to take in the aroma of the mystical fall day, Abaddon’s tainted eyes caught the rays of the sun. He was a peacock feather glimmering with luster. I’m untouchable, he arrogantly thought to himself. Finally, the respect I deserve. Money and power. Hell, I’ve got it all. Guess Bolos may be right: I do have it all.

“Wake up you f*^#** idiot, and get off the road!” screamed an irritated passerby who nearly swiped Abaddon from his luster. Ah, the slim that started me down this path, he remembered with a distorted face. It was time to deliver the last assignment to his organization.

He slithered in his pickup truck with extreme caution down the woodsy, beaten-down roads. These roads were not his usual choice of travel, but with his rather valuable load, this seemed the best route. Up ahead lay a hidden pull-off that sat back into the woods, where he used to meet for some drug deals while working for MATT money. This particular hidden inlet had always given him the creeps. He was in no shape to have his day tainted by the police. Sure enough, he thought to himself as his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. A cop! He had driven up and down that road for as long as he had known Bolos, and there was never a cop parked there. Was the officer onto something? Had there been a leak in their seemingly flawless system? Abaddon could actually hear the beat of his own heart as it slammed against his chest like a fist slamming a door.             Instantly, his guts began to turn and wrench. The mixture of the drugs and his nervousness brought a piercing pain to his stomach. This is it; this is it! He started into a full-blown panic attack. The breath rushed from Abaddon’s lungs, and he was gasping for air. As he passed the cop, the two locked eyes. Suspicion was written all over the officer’s face as he talked on his radio. Had they called for backup and barricaded the road ahead, he speculated? Now he could not hold onto the steering wheel because his body was in full tremors. Sweat was running down his face as if someone had dumped a glass of water on his head.

Relief had almost sunken in as he pulled ahead of the cop about two hundred yards and the police cruiser stayed in its spot. Ah, he wasn’t after me, he thought, still quite nervous. Whoop! Whoop! The sirens of the police car signaled that he had just pulled out and the lights were throwing a disco party on the roof of the cop car. Fear conquered his last nerve, and Abaddon bent down to pull the AK-47 from under his seat. He could not take the fall now. The jail time that awaited him would be child’s play compared to the torture that would be thrust upon him by Bolos. There would be a relentless pursuit of the leaders of this operation that would inevitably bring down many of them, and each would store a bit of rage to unload on Abaddon when the timing was right.

Dhana, a pretty girl with short, jet-black hair and the body of a goddess, was also a member of MATT, Abaddon’s former gang. She held the attention from every guy in the gang with her low-cut tank tops that were revealing enough to control the men and get what she wanted. Abaddon had been “close” to her for months. One night, after having too much alcohol, she clumsily made a deal with an undercover cop. It was a rookie mistake. Really, other than her looks, there was not much purpose for her being in the gang. In order to free herself from jail time, she gave up several other names to the cop.             Three weeks later, at 2:35 a.m., she crawled to the front door of Abaddon’s home. When he opened the door, Dhana was barely recognizable. Her face was swollen, split, and shattered. Her left eye bulged out of its socket as if ready to pop. Her left ear was half missing. Three ribs pierced through her skin like a stitched football. She would pull through the brutal attack, but both Abaddon and Dhana learned a valuable lesson that day: you take the fall and bring no one with you. Snitches get stitches.

Now, years later and in a much bigger scenario, Abaddon was plagued by the haunting memories of that night. He had no sooner brought the gun to his waist than the blinking car sped around Abaddon and into the distance, in obvious pursuit of another matter. But now Abaddon gripped the AK-47. How many times had he thought to himself, Just end it? Abaddon shakily raised the gun to his head as sweat trickled from his nose. What am I really? A puke? Rich from the power of destroying others’ lives, he bitterly thought. Abaddon closed his eyes and depressed the trigger. As life was about to slip from him, his cell phone ring and snapped him back to reality. Bolos? What could he want? Walking the tightrope of life, tug-of-war between life and death, Abaddon stomped the gas pedal to the floor.

Abaddon pulled into his garage and shut the door behind him. Once he was out of sight, Abaddon arrived at his house, nearly tipped the truck pulling in, and opened the hidden garage door that resembled a part of his house. He drove into his “street pharmacy” behind the concealed door.

Panicking, Abaddon scrambled into his kitchen. Strategically placed behind a framed picture of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was his own little pharmacy. Quickly he gobbled a handful of pills and spread a line of another drug on the countertop, which he sniffed up like a Hoover. The cell phone again, he thought. Why was Bolos so persistent? He began to feel the instantaneous effects of the drugs. The phone, which he now held, became increasingly blurry. He staggered back and forth, bumping into furniture like a wrecking ball. Before unconsciousness settled in, he had made his way to his bed and collapsed in it.