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The Fifth AngelExcerpt
In the drawer beside the bed was a green Bible. Jack took it into the next room and opened it to Revelations.
He had a vague idea about an avenging angel. That's what he was. For fifteen minutes he searched, and then he found it: the fifth angel of the apocalypse. The fifth angel would bring a vial of death and pain to the throne of Satan. There, he would pour out its contents, mercilessly avenging the evil done by Satan and all his followers. That was Jack. He was the fifth angel and that was how he signed his cathartic letter. After closing the document and storing it in a secure file, Jack shut down his computer and searched through his duffel bag for a different set of clothes and a windbreaker. Intoxicated by the existence of his letter and the sense of justice it would bring to a fellow victim, Jack hurried outside, stopping only to pitch his Malox bottle under the cabin climbing into his car. There was a slight incline down to the main loop and Jack put the Saab in neutral, letting it roll away from the cabin. When it stopped, he started up the car and rolled down the windows to listen. The engine purred quietly making less noise than the sound of crunching gravel beneath the tires. The driveway—he knew from a small map that Mrs. Steffenhauser had given him to when he checked in—was a broad semicircle whose other end would take Jack to the highway without having to pass the main house. Nevertheless, Jack crawled along with his headlights off until he came to the road. His hands trembled and he gripped the wheel tightly, forcing himself not to speed and breathing deeply in order to better concentrate on his impromptu plan. The sickening fear had crept up inside him, trickling into his core like a cesspool. He was going to kill someone and he couldn't stop it. He passed the Inn and Tom Conner's house, searching for an appropriate place to pull off the road. Less than a quarter mile away he came to a gas station. There were several cars lined up outside awaiting repair and Jack pulled in next to them. For several minutes he sat in the darkness, looking and listening. He got out of the car and circled the building, searching for signs of inhabitants. Satisfied, he went to the trunk of the Saab and removed a pair of leather driving gloves and then his gun and holster from its metal case. The road was empty and Jack reached the driveway to Tom Conner's house in just a few minutes. He looked up the winding path at the old house that rose like a cancer from the hilltop, gaping down upon the road and the Inn across the way with obscene malice. Jack felt his face tighten into a grim mask. He looked around and then climbed the hill, quiet except for his own heavy breathing. As he reached the top, he could see a dilapidated green panel van parked next to the side of the house. Fresh tire marks in the sand told him the van was in use and suggested that Tom Conner was at home. He moved closer to the house, removing the pistol with its weighty silencer from the holster beneath his arm. The stillness of the decrepit old house surrounded him like a heavy mist, pressing him from all sides. His ears strained for a sound, creating a low electric hum of their own in the absence of anything else. A small voice inside him cried out in protest. This was a wild endeavor, unplanned and unsafe, just like the Brice killing. But the voice was smothered by a stronger urge that had all but consumed him. The weight of his foot on the first step caused its rusty nails to shriek in protest and Jack froze with his heart pummeling the inside of his chest like a fighter working the heavy bag. But the noise shouldn't matter. He would have to knock anyway. The noise of his footsteps was a natural precursor to that. He took a deep breath and climbed to the porch amid a tempest of groaning planks and squeaking nails. The front door, battered from years of weather against its naked face, was nevertheless solid as a rock slag. Jack rapped his knuckles against it, the sound barely resonating. In the door's center was the snarling face of a corroded cast iron lion. Jack lifted its massive lower jaw and slammed it down three times. Not a sound came from within. He waited several more minutes. Disappointment tainted with relief began to flood through him and the adrenaline began to ebb. He went to the nearest window and began rapping on its ancient panes. That's when he noticed that one of the panes was missing. He reached his hand through the opening and pushed aside the moldy curtain, peering into the darkness of the house where he could make out the faint outline of a doorway. His rush instantly returned. It appeared to be a door beneath the staircase. Was there a basement? If there was a basement in an old house like this it was apt not to have windows. That would be the place someone like Tom Conner might devise or even carry out his loathsome deeds. It would also explain why no one had answered the door. Maybe that's where he was, down there, planning, scheming, or watching the kind of pornographic smut that his kind of diseased mind delighted in. Jack felt for the window's latch. He found it and forced it open. Letting the curtain fall back into place, he grasped the frame of the window and tried to force it open. It was hopelessly jammed. With a frustrated huff, he left it alone and began to circle the house, moved by an unseen hand. It was possible that there was a door in the back that wasn't locked. If there was, he could enter there. If not, he'd come back and try to open the ancient window again. It wouldn't do to come this far and simply give up. Past the van, in the back of the house there was another entrance. It was a newer door, locked, but with the kind of latch that Jack knew could be opened by sliding a durable card between the door and the frame. He removed the wallet from the back of his pants pocket and extracted his driver's license. Carefully, he began to work the card into the doorframe below the lock with the Glock still gripped tightly in his other hand. The sense of someone else's presence drew his attention away from the door. The demonic sight of Tom Conner's snarling, bearded face and his dark menacing form rounding the far corner of the house made Jack jump and cry out in shock at the same instant. An orange burst of flame lit the night, an explosion ripped through the silence, and Jack felt the impact of a shotgun blast tearing into his flesh, spinning him up into the air and throwing him backward like a lifeless puppet down onto the sandy blood-speckled ground. © Tim Green 
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