Felipe was born poor in a shack in Honduras. His family all lived in the same room with a dirt floor and considered themselves lucky to have electricity. But they didn't have indoor plumbing. They had to use an outhouse. They used a communal pump for safe drinking water and bathed in the river. His father worked on a commercial fishing vessel and wired money to the nearest town for their mother to go pick up the money. He showed up erratically at home due to his job. Felipe barely knew his dad.
His mother wasn't an attractive woman, nor was his older sister. That fact was what kept them from being abducted or raped. The local gangs ran the neighborhoods. Felipe's older brother, Ernesto, was a drug mule for them. Ernesto made numerous runs before getting his sister, Dora involved, too. Felipe was planning on joining the gang when he was considered old enough. But he ended up being one of the youngest gang members at the age of I2. The gang was called the Toro’s. His brother and sister started taking Felipe along to make their runs when he was between ages II-I2. For delivering keys of drugs, they would carry it on them, usually in Felipe's backpack under school books. For smaller amounts going to nicer areas, they swallowed balloons filled with heroin. They looked like a simple family of young siblings and that kept them from suspicion of most folks in law enforcement and other gangs.
The last time they went to deliver their connection with dope along the docks of the gulf of Honduras, it went bad. They'd made that journey numerous times before. But that was their last drug dealing trip as a family. They were actually on the docks when 8 rival gangsters appeared all around them, with some pointing pistols and others carrying knives and clubs. Felipe, his sister, Dora, and eldest brother, Ernesto, surrendered meekly. They weren't carrying any weapons or much money. Their real riches were the drug balloons full of heroin in their stomachs. Helplessly facing firearms, the siblings were quickly seized and had their wrists zip cuffed behind their backs. Tape was stuck over their mouths and they were pushed and pulled through a few alleys and backstreets. They were forced into an old warehouse shed being guarded by two other gang members with guns. Once inside, little Felipe was shoved down in a corner.
Felipe watched his brother be zip cuffed around the ankles and held tightly. Felipe wiggled wildly in his bonds, but no one was paying him much attention. The gangsters stuffed wide sticks down Dora's and Ernesto's throats, making them vomit on a tarp. Heroin filled balloons spewed out like candy from busted piñatas. The gangsters wore gloves to dig the dope out of the vomit. That should have been enough. Instead one of the gangsters with a knife plunged it in Ernesto's chest. He was gutted open and once eviscerated, his stomach was slit open and intestines checked. The gangster found three more balloons lodged in an intestine.
Dora prayed for her brother mentally as she cried while he died. Dora had to watch her big brother be casually killed and gutted like a fish only a few feet away. She was looking in his eyes as it happened. She was horrified and helpless. After the gangster finished murdering and mutilating her brother, he turned to her and she knew she was next. She silently prayed fervently for God to accept her into his kingdom and to forgive her sins.
It was only then that she realized she was in for some torture before death. Her clothes were cut off and her legs spread wide by two gangsters while the one with bloody gloves put his knife aside to stick fingers inside her orifices searching for more balloons.
The killer grunted in surprise. "This little bitch is still a virgin. She doesn't look like much, but I think she needs to get her cherry busted first." her brother's killer joked with the others. “We're not in a rush. “He added with a smirk.
"She's got a good body for an ugly chick." another gangster added. Others echoed raunchy comments. Felipe watched his sister be brutally gang raped and sodomized by all ten gang members. At one point he made eye contact with Dora and he saw the terror and anguish on her face. Everyone in the gang had their turn. Then the same cruel gangster eviscerated his sister and dug through her stomach and intestines, He didn't find any extra heroin filled balloons.
Felipe knew he would be searched and slain next. Felipe had spent the time largely ignored in the corner, discreetly wiggling his wrists and ankles. His wrists were a bit wider than his hands and he succeeded in slipping his right wrist out of his zip cuffs. There was one gangster sitting in a chair with his back to Felipe as he watched Dora first raped and then butchered. He was the last one to rape her and was feeling tired. His machine pistol sat on his lap laxly. Felipe's eyes were focused on a busted block corner or concrete with a jagged edge only inches from his face. He was terrified considering what he had to try doing. But he was also aware that he would be gutted next. He was destined to die. He hated the evil gangsters that had slaughtered and raped his siblings. He wanted revenge. He had tried praying to God while watching his sibling be slaughtered. He was no longer praying. He decided if he was going to die then he'd rather die fighting than being meekly butchered.
Felipe rose suddenly while seizing the jagged chunk of concrete. He made two swift steps and swung the shard with all his strength. The seated gangster was just starting to turn when the concrete crunched his cranium, dashing his brains around. He seemed to roll out of his chair onto the floor. Felipe snatched the Uzi machine pistol from his fallen foe. His brother had shown him how to handle pistols before. The killer, and seven other gangsters, were grouped together. One of them turned his head seeing movement. His eyes bulged and mouth opened to shout out as he saw Felipe.
Felipe aimed at the center body mass of the murderer crouched over his brother. The Uzi uttered its rattling precipitous pops, pulsing its passel of projectiles into the killer's body. The ravaging rows of rounds riddled the killer from his frame up to his face. The slugs shoved him down, dying. The erupting Uzi bucked badly in Felipe’s hands as the recoil made the muzzle jump up. Half by memory of his brother's firearm tutelage, and half by luck, Felipe’s finger slipped off the trigger. It allowed him to lower the gun and get a better grip as the other gangsters reacted. Some tried to turn and run, while another tried pulling his own pistol from under his long shirt. The gangsters were stuck out in the open of the shed enclosure and their only convenient cover was either the office or the front door.
Felipe looked down the barrel, fitting the gunman's frame in the barrel before he gored the guy with gobbets of lead. The vigorous volley fatally flogged the fellow onto the floor, Felipe ceased shooting to move the barrel at the other men. The armed thug out front jumped through the front door with his machine pistol. But he found his field of fire filled with his friends fleeing his way. He didn't have a lane to shoot through. Unintentionally he was blocking his buddies from the door. Time seemed to flow like syrup.
One of the gangsters at the back or the mob pulled his pistol on the run and fired behind him as he ran. His gun's gush of shots were sloppy, missing Felipe. Felipe fixed his barrel on the gunman's center back mass and twitched his finger on the trigger. Felipe's purloined pistol subdued the other shooter, bumping him over bleeding from a bunch of bullets in his body. Then Felipe wheeled his weapon to besiege the others' backs. His shots slogged several bodies and bopped one in the neck and noggin. Then his Uzi firing pin clicked on an empty clip.
Felipe turned towards the guy he'd bunged the brains out of. Felipe kneeled down grabbing desperately and his fingers found the extra clip in the guy's coat, along with a box of 9mm shells. Meanwhile the gangsters had managed to all pile in the office doorway, forcing their armed friend outside in their haste to escape out their only exit. Felipe yanked the action back and let it slam shut. To be sure he had a round chambered, he tentatively touched the trigger, making it spew a deluge that diced the door and thin shed walls. The bullets bunted through both barriers impinging others escaping outside. He squeezed off a sustained salvo, but stopped short while he had some ammo left.
The brave little boy paused, panting with an adrenaline overload. He was shaking like a leaf. He cautiously studied the scene. He'd mowed over six men, two were maimed trying to escape by crawling toward the door. With a rage and brutality beyond his I2 years, Felipe lined each man in his sights and dispatched them with brief discharges, thwacking both their backs. It prodded one punk face down and nudged the other nasty rapist on his side. Felipe ceased shooting. He felt a sense of great satisfaction and power watching them suffer dying slowly.
With methodical movements, Felipe slunk back in the corner he'd come from, which provided some cover if his enemies returned. Huddled there, he reloaded the empty clip. Then he put that one in the gun and reloaded the other clip that still had some rounds left. He moved through the large room studying the men he shot and keeping an eye on the door that he'd drilled full of holes. He was surprised to be alive and didn't know what to do next under the circumstances. He could be attacked again at any moment. He looked at his siblings and then averted his gaze. He knew he had to run. He still had balloons of heroin in his stomach.
The gangsters had saved him for last. Their decision to rape his sister had bought him the time and distraction he needed to slip free, ambush and bash one's brains out, then steal a gun and go nuts filling his foes with fusillades from one of their own guns. He'd been very lucky, but he'd also shown some savvy in survival and shooting.
He grabbed a couple big duffel bags laying near bodies. He picked up the dope balloons and dropped them in the bags. He then went through the pockets of each dead man, grabbing their money. He was pleased to find a substantial amount among the mob. Then he approached the door.
He discovered his enemies had fled. He decided to make the delivery and find out more about the monsters that had murdered his family, and to make the survivors pay.
Felipe’s trail of vengeance wasn’t over.
End
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, The Horror Zine, Freedom Fiction Journal, Short-Story Me, Dark Harbor, Blood Moon Rising, Flash Phantoms, Phantomania, Lowlife Lit, The Listening Eye, J Journal, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spotlight on Recovery, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life and many other magazines. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in 2019. You can find more of his writings at tomkropp.wordpress.com. He has many audiobooks available free at Google Play Books.
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