CHAPTER EIGHT

“Payback IS going to be a bitch, Rider. Just wait for it.” – Anon

 

 

 

      The man was raging with hatred. Surrounded by stagnant water, the ground underneath him was cold, hard, filthy. He was fatigued laid up against the stump of a tree, all around him there was noises of the night, bugs, crickets, howls in the distance. None of it mattered while his veins bulged with hatred and the need to kill one motherfucker in particular.

      He despised Rider Marinos.

       He was going to kill Rider Marinos very, very fucking slowly with as much agony as he could, to make the last moments of that bastard’s life more despondent than he could ever imagine.

      The man surveyed the woods he was stranded in; lost was a better word.

      He hated the woods. Never went into them. Until forced to.

      Cold, his clothes soaked through after the night’s rain fell in hard pelts. He needed to find shelter and quickly.

      The man’s leg burned. Vicious gray eyes stared at his useless limb still attached to his body, he’d managed to dig the bullet out from the top of his thigh hours ago, unimaginable pain made him violently ill all over himself and now he could feel the infection setting in, pus oozing from the wound, swollen and raw, it would be a matter of hours still until sepsis set in and he died out here.

      The man had lost his cell phone somewhere during his climb.

      Unreachable to anyone.

      Hate could achieve a great many things. Granted, he wasn’t running anytime soon, but he could get his fucking ass up off the forest floor at least.

      The huge size of the man, used the tree for balance, shimmying his body up and up. Sweating in agony, pain lancing his leg until he wanted to cut the fucking thing off.

      He held one face in his mind’s eye while he struggled to do the simplest task of rising to his feet.

       Hate boiling his gut, churning his blood into a volcano, he finally was standing on one leg, panting vigorously, exerted sweat pouring down his face, gathering in his beard.

      Those same unfeeling, glacial detached gray eyes surveyed the thick spread of trees and bushes as far as the eye could see.

      Murder his only thought.

      The man was deciding his best course of action, in which direction to head when he caught a noise.

     Alert.

      Deadly still, silent. He listened to it approach closer through the darkness, crisp sounds of one set of light feet.

      He patted his pockets, found them empty of his usual handguns.

      His tattooed fists clenched.

      Ready.

       He’d murdered a bunch with just his bare hands for weapons.

       The man could think on his feet, even as death was knocking on his own door, he was thinking of delivering it to whoever came closer through the forest towards him.

      Hate was a helluva motivator.

      Before he went to Hell, he was going to kill the Renegade Souls president.

      Closer. Closer. Closer.

      Adrenaline spiked the man’s system, pumping energy to his muscles, ready to strike, to kill and steal what he needed.

      Alert, unbreathing, he waited for the noise to draw ever nearer.

      Only the worst survived and today was not the day he died.

      He delved down deep into his psyche where the nasty lived, felt that familiar coldness for the hunt, the kill, the taste of blood dripping down his face sweep over him.

      The man was grinning like the vicious evil murderous sociopath he was when he finally clapped eyes on the dark shadow.

      Good things came to those who waited, he thought with a heaved inhale of cooler night air so crisp it burned his lungs.

      And he’d waited just long enough for divine intervention.

      He laughed internally. The sound a little maniacal.

     “Thank God.” People trusted you when you threw God in there. “Can you help me, please?” he asked the hiker, with the pack full of goodies strapped over their back.

       All sense of normality in his rough voice.

      The man was good at acting as people expected.

      He smiled rueful, even as the fever swept through him with a harsh shiver, pain forgotten, he stood a little taller.

      It was Isaiah who had said, and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

       The man felt the same hatred strengthen him, his childhood bible studies lingering in the background noise of his mind, he twisted each one to mean only one thing; Kill. And kill soon.

      Rider would be slain.

      For the man was the Lord, judge, and executioner.