Draugr

It ain’t like the old days anymore. Wars changed me. Twisted me. When I got back I was expecting a country free from indifference. Free from violence. Now everywhere I look there’s just reminders that what existed outside the boarders of my home nation were nothing more than an outside reflection of the shit brewing back home.

Now I’m a drifter. I hate that term, but that’s what they call me. I don’t like to play the victim type, but on nights like these, when the moon is just right and the sauce ain’t sitting right in my gut, I feel nastier than I appear. They like to think I don’t hear them, but I do. I hear their whispers and I feel their eyes move about me.

Maybe I took one too many grenades to the face. Maybe I let the trenches mold my skin. Maybe I been shot so many times my nerves just stopped caring. The only pain I feel anymore is the emotional kind, and I ain’t much of an emotional guy. Like I tell anyone willing to listen, it’s those small moments when I get around to feeling like this.

My childhood was good. I got decent grades, got smacked around by a teacher or two, but when the war came up I felt something new. I got to travel, gamble, kill, rape and drink away my goodness. The war was a masterpiece, but eventually the powers above figured they’d made enough money off dead soldiers and called everyone back to their boarders.

If I had died out there, like any one of my old fiends, I’d be just another name on a plot somewhere. Laid and forgotten by the slim that hired me to defend them. This country’s something, ain’t it? We come back and you think they have a job lined up for us? Any money to get by? No. They let us give our lives and now we’re back to die on the streets.

There ain’t no difference. I’m starting to see that now. I guess, if I had to choose one thing about distinguishing city life apart from war, it would be the lack of grenades. I guess that’s just cause guns and knives suffice in a pit of crime and scum. Now that I’m back I ain’t stopped the killing. The war’s just followed.

Criminals. There are only two kinds, those being thieves and killers. There ain’t no in-between. Thieves are alright. The only thing I hate about them is whether or not they’re stealing for personal gain, pleasure or a need to help someone or feed their family. In cases like those I usually break some bones if it’s for pleasure, and I only kill them if one tries to kill me.

A family man I can’t bring myself to do in. It’s that old-time compassion that bites me in the ass when I’m feeling up to the killing. I ain’t ever killed an innocent and I don’t have no desire to neither. Thieves I’ll rough around, but I can understand their plight. I used to be a thief, but not since I realized material desires are something short of a primitive mindset. 

He who frees himself of materialism will never be weighed down again. That I can assure you. Not like killers, though. What eats me about them, what really burns my ass, is the mindset of a killer. I hate those who think they can take lives and suffer no consequence. With all the killing I’ve done, I have no doubt god’ll punish me one day.

All the bad shit I’ve committed will eat me up in a blaze of hellfire, and I’ll stand stern and alert at the fact that I deserve it. I’ll burn forever in hell with a just mind, but until then I desire to dedicate my life to the killing of killers. It’s a cliche, written about in pulp magazines. I’ve heard the tales of vigilantes since back from when I was a kid.

It only makes sense that it could be me. The military experience, the knowledge of torture, vital points on the body and combat prowess beyond that of any loud-mouth gang member. I am the only one who could do this. I do it to redeem myself in the eyes of god, so that the fires that take me might be lit a little lower when it’s my time to head down.

Even if they ain’t that’s fine. I’ll be happy knowing all those I killed are burning alongside me. In fact, I’ll laugh at the prospect. Cause’ what I hate most about killers is how they inconvenience the common man. They spread fear and sorrow everywhere they go and with every life they take. My killings are for the good of the world and free potential victims.

My only beef with the way I do things is that innocent folks and bad folks mix and match their perception of me. To the honest person I’m a low life cause I look like a walking corpse. To the villain I’m a withered hobo, a bullet away from being what I’m already considered. That being dead. It isn’t till after the bullets fly and my knives cut flesh that the good people fear me and the killers fear me even more.

I wish it wasn’t like that. Well, then again, there was that one time.

~

Her name was Amy. Sweet kid. She was about twelve when we first met. She was part of some foster care thing. Some organization that was uncaring enough to make her walk home from school, in a bad part of town, alone. She was blonde, had blue eyes and an angel’s smile. If I’d ever gotten around to being a father, I’d hoped my baby look something like her.

It was another night out on the town. I was up on the rooftops. That’s where I go when I like to think. It also helps with the harmonics of the neighborhood. I can everything from up there. At first I heard footsteps, but not a woman’s. These were a little girl’s footsteps. That was when I heard the other ones.

The footsteps of the men, approaching from behind. Christ only knows what they were thinking of doing to her. Before any of that I hopped down from the fire escape. I put a knife through one of them and another put a bullet in the back of my shoulder. Just like before, I couldn’t feel it. By the time I snapped the neck of the one I had stabbed, I could see there were three guys left.

Only one, the leader, had a pistol. The leader shot at me again. That next bullet skimmed past my ribs and gave me a mild flesh wound as I closed in on him. His friends fell back in fear. I guess it was from the shock of some big burly guy actually approaching someone holding a gun, with no fear of being gunned down.

Yeah, I guess it was that. Before he could get a third round off on me, I grabbed his arm and broke it at the elbow. He dropped that gun real quick. I took him by the throat and squeezed until I was sure he wasn’t gonna draw breath again. In any other case I wouldn’t have pursued the two guys that ran for it, but they were gonna prey on a child.

Something like that can’t go unpunished, so I picked up the leader’s gun and put a bullet in each of their backs. Once they fell I walked up to each one and snapped their spines with my heel. After they cried out in gargled agony I put a bullet or two in their heads and pocketed the gun to sell off later on.

It was after the carnage that I calmed down and realized the little girl, Amy, hadn’t run away. She sat and watched the whole thing, and for that I felt a little sick and disappointed with my self, not making sure that she was turned away. Kids ain’t meant to see that kind of shit, but Amy didn’t mind. She introduced herself to me and told me where she was from.

South of the city. I could see she wasn’t scared and when I asked her why she didn’t run, she told me she wanted to see justice put forth. Amy wasn’t like most girls. She came from a broken place, and existed there since birth. It was that kind of place I found in war. That place that changed me. This kid was something else.

Some of the folks in the neighborhood took to calling me her guardian devil. I’d watch from the wings everyday when she’d walk home. During the day she took the buses. I did this up until she gradated and moved out of state. Good for her. The sweet kid deserved a crack at a better life. I hope she got it.

Amy promised she’d come around now and again, to say hello. She doesn’t, but it’s not like I can blame her. If I ever had the guts to leave this shit-hole I’d probably never come back too. Amy escaped into a world she knew wasn’t gonna treat her right, prepared to make her own way. If only the rest of us stupid bastards would have followed along, maybe we’d be on our way to the top, whistling a happier tune.

But instead we’re just drunkards, boozing it up on another dizzy Sunday night. A failure’s sabbath.

~

I love guns. In all my time on this earth I have never seen a more perfect way to kill someone. Guns allow you to take a life quick, neatly and from a distance, if you so desire. And as long as the authorities don’t trace the ammo, you can get off scot-free. That’s usually why I don’t resort to my guns right away.

I’ll crush a bastard’s head before I put a slug in them. Even at the point of gunning bastards down, I’d like to shoot them with their own guns. It’s a spite thing. It’s rare I bring guns to a gunfight. Most of the time I like to take a bullet or two, balance my luck and freak them out a bit. Nothing scares a shitless rat worse than emptying clips on a hulk of a guy who keeps on coming.

Even up until they die I can see it in their eyes, asking god why someone like me could possibly exist. And I have no answer for them. Just a maddening laugh and the crushing blows I rained down upon their chests. Back in Nam me and the boys would take turns landing blows on bastards who tried to sneak in, over our lines, at night.

We showed them a thing or two. Nothing more fulfilling than catching some prick with a knife trying to cut your throat while you slept, then grabbing him by the neck and having him all to yourself. We used to take the live ones, gut them, fill them with sand or straw, and stack their bodies up to make it look like we had people posted all over the base at night.

The enemy was dumb, and I mean real dumb. We had dummies all over, set up to look like we had all the manpower we would ever need. And those rice-eaters bought it. Back in war I knew this guy, Gustav Hanz. He was a German immigrant. Came to America three years prior to study being a doctor, or something.

He was our medic. I mean, that’s not all we used him for. Every once in a while, when a raid got bad, he took up a rifle and joined in. Gustav really was one hell of a gunner. Back with my boys I ran a tough crew. We were a sweep team if anyone ever seen one. All that ended when one of our guys from the outside underestimated a mission we were going into.

One of the bases back home sent some new cocky recruit out to lead us in one final mission before coming back home. Maybe it was laziness, but despite wanting to bash the little brats brains in for how he talked down to us, we put up with it and went on through. We raided a compound that was supposed to have five guys guarding it.

We walked into a fifty-man guarded fort and got blasted all to hell. I took a grenade to the chest. The last of many. Even in those days I couldn’t tell why things like that couldn’t kill me. Sure, I was a big guy, but bullets could get stuck in my flesh, stopping them from hitting anything vital. I didn’t get it.

All this time later I notice my skin was thick. Leathery. It’s almost like I’m thicker than before. Tougher, like I can take some real damage. Anyways, like I was saying… my whole team got dead. I got knocked out by a grenade and when I came to the bastards were closing in on me. I got to my feet, put a knife between my teeth and went into a rage.

I don’t remember much of what I did to the rest of the guys in that compound. The general said I took out thirty armed guys with nothing but a hunting knife. When they found me I was in a pool of blood. They dug twenty-four bullets out of my upper body. That was all inside my shoulders, chest and back.

Thank god none of them aimed for my privates. I left the war in nineteen seventy-five. I was seventeen then. Almost as built as I am now, but smaller. Now I can crush a guys head in my bare hands. Comes in real handy when I don’t feel like bargaining with the scum of the city. And it ain’t like there aren’t any corrupt cops neither.

Oh, I’ve killed my fair share. About seven of them. The thing is, even though they’re cops, the noble ones make sure I get away with it. The seeds of crime grow deep here, but there does exist seeds of good. Kill one twisted man in a position of power, you’d be surprised to see who comes out of the woodwork to cover your tracks and keep you up doing what you’re doing. 

And all cause it’s for the good of the people. Not just that, but it’s just real fun to kill bad guys.

~

I couldn’t tell you how it happened. That's mainly just cause I don’t know how it happened myself, but somehow I’m back from the dead. Still kicking. Still killing. If you think I was a lowlife’s nightmare before, you should see me now. Folks always said I looked like a zombie. Well, now there ain’t no denying it.

I’m back for more and I’ve never felt better. As for the dying, I’m not too sure how it went. I remember being in a bar with a group of gangsters. It was in my bar. My favorite bar. They came in and were making a mess of the joint. I did my usual act. Let them shoot me a couple times, then let them talk themselves up, and all before I snapped them like chocolate bars.

It was all going so well, then I got careless. One of them came up with a revolver from behind me. Shot a round in the back of my head. But my head is thick and my skull bounced the slug right off. Still, it hurt like a fucker and there was this mad ringing in my head. While I was down the brat in front of me tried to shoot me.

I kicked his nuts into his throat. Then, just as the ringing was coming down, I felt something cold on my neck. Whoever shot me from behind had shoved a sleek stiletto into my left jugular. I tried to turn around and see who it was, but by that time my vision was already going. I hit the floor but only felt the force, not seeing anything.

I felt nothing after that. Just this sense of tiredness. I guess when I die again that’ll be what it’s like. Falling into a sleep you don’t wake up from. I always figured, after I was put down, that I’d wake up to flames and the devil standing over me, boasting and whatnot. But, no. The next thing I remember I’m waking up.

My heart beat was going and all my systems were functioning. I’ve heard of these kinds of things before. I think I’m what’s known as a Draugr. Also known as an Again-Walker. They’re folks that died in bad ways and eventually will themselves back to life to carry out some purpose. Whether that purpose gets fulfilled or not is irrelevant.

After a draugr dies a second time, they go down for good. And seeing as how hard it was to kill me the last time, and considering how lucky that punk from the bar got, this second-times-a-charm business is only making me grin wider. Reading up on the lore of draugrs, ripped straight from greek mythology, there’s much I didn’t know.

I smell like shit. That just being a side effect of being undead, but I’ve learned I can do other things. All of these which I have used to fight killers as of late. Apparently I am what the norse-folk refer to as an Undead Warrior of Vengeance. I can turn intangible and go through objects. This comes in handy when someone runs throughout a building to try and escape me.

I just float through everything until I find them. Every room, every wall, I can move past it and even get into hidden places without having to look for an entrance. I have a few other abilities such as staring into peoples eyes and making them go mad. That’s my favorite one. All I have to do is connect eyes with some low life and I can have them drop to the ground screaming and crying, buying me time to slice, shoot or pummel them.

I used to be six foot, but as a draugr I can increase my size all together. I’ve only been able to get up to eight feet. What I like best is that all of me grows. My limbs, muscles, the whole package. I can manipulate my size and, believe me, that sends criminals running. When I’m depressed it rains, I can sometimes shift into the form of a more human-looking body if I want to walk around in broad daylight.

Lastly, I can infect people with my breath. I can make zombies of my own, except they don’t last very long. Only an hour or so. I guess the only downside to all these powers is that it takes a big chunk of my energy away. If I do any of these too much I pass out. I learned that the hard way the other day when I became tangible, hunting down a pocketbook thief, and ended up conking out while jumping from one building to another.

I fell six stories and landed in an alley. Some of my ribs shattered, but all in all I was okay. I ain’t all powerful, though. I’m weak against iron. Like Superman and kryptonite. I can’t go near it without feeling weak. After my many run-ins with the substance I decided to research what exactly can kill me.

You know, just so I can play it safe. Turns out, even if I take an iron bullet to the brain, I’ll walk away fine. Anyone who plans on killing me is gonna have to behead me, destroy my brain, burn my head, burn my body, bless my ashes and bury me deep in the ground for good measure. Or else I can keep coming back.

That is, as long as my unconscious mind wills it, so it will be.