It was early evening. An orange-red tint highlighted the western horizon colored in like a child's painting. Harsh smoke coursed down his throat and filled his lungs before billowing back out into the cooling air. It swirled and danced on a soft breeze before dissipating away. Soon it would begin. One hour from now the sirens would blare and mayhem and destruction would start.
The Purge as it had been named by the New Founding Fathers of America those who had usurped control from the President before it during the financial crisis at the beginning of the new millennium. It had been created to cleanse our souls of hate and anger, a twelve-hour period that allowed us to commit crime. You couldn't argue with results. Since the inaugural event crime had dropped to zero percent, poverty and unemployed right alongside it.
To cleanse our souls, what an inaccurate description of what they really wanted. Yes unemployment and poverty were marked as nonexistent but that didn't mean it didn't exist. The Purge existed to cleanse people of hate for sure but its underlying motives were to kill the weak, the poor, those who couldn't defend themselves. He lifted a hand to the flesh of his neck and traced a finger along the scar where a butcher's knife had sliced through skin and muscle in an attempt to end his life.
Four years ago his wife and he had been low-tier workers in a factory that designed home defense systems for the Purge. They had lived in a modest apartment and not been able to afford much for their own defense. A revolver had been their only defense against attackers. They would lock themselves in the bathroom and sit in the dark for the duration of the twelve-hours awake and listening. They were lucky for so long.
He winced and pulled his fingers away from the scar and flicked the end of the cigarette off into his perfectly manicured lawn. It trailed smoke as it flew before settling into the freshly watered grass. He watched the last ember sizzle out. From a modest apartment to a three-hundred thousand dollar home in a little over four years. It had taken a lot of sacrifice.
That year their luck finally ran out. It had been nearly over when a group of hunters had come to the apartment building. Apartment by apartment they had dragged out the patrons and killed them. His wife and he had listened for nearly an hour as screams and shouts echoed up the stair well. Eventually he thought the killers would get bored or get their fill of death. When he heard the door to their apartment shatter open he knew he was wrong. He cocked the hammer back on the revolver and waited.
He'd never shot the thing before it had been a hundred dollar knock off of some brand. How was he supposed to know the sick bastard who sold it to him had filed off the firing pin? When the bathroom door shattered and the gun clicked with a dull metal sound his heart had caught in his throat. His attackers had frozen and then they laughed, the noise was like nails on a chalk board in the close quarters of the bathroom.
His wife and he had kicked and punched but they had been out numbered. Six people in masks had dragged her and him down the stairs and outside. Bodies lay everywhere, the pavement was slick with crimson. The sun hung low in the sky over the morning. He cursed and wondered how they could get so close to surviving another year only to have this happen. A tall man in a suit had walked forward to them with a twelve inch butcher knife in his hand. A pin on his suit was labeled J&M.
Jackson and Montgomery Home Defense Systems, the company his wife and he worked for. The realization that they were about to be killed by the employer who refused to give raises and kept them in the position they were made fury build inside him.
He could still remember the man's voice, "The Purge is coming to an end and our souls have been cleansed. You as our last sacrifice give us the greatest cleansing of all. You are not dying in vain my friends."
He reached for his wife as another behind her pulled her hair to extend her neck. He screamed as the man swung a knife and hot blood sprayed from a newly opened wound. Her eyes fluttered and for a second they stared at him filled with tears before the person behind her wrenched back and bone snapped.
Arms were wrapping around him and pulling him back. A hand gripped his head from either side and pulled it back. Adrenaline coursed through his veins but he wasn't strong enough to pull away from three people. He stared at the man with the knife with pure hatred as he stepped forward, the morning sun reflecting off the blood covering the pressed plastic of the mask. The knife rose in the air flecks of blood flying off.
Everything seemed to happen slowly, the blood covered blade swung at him and he felt the person on his left lose grip on his arm. He used every fiber in his being to pull from that side and to try and wrench free of the grasp of the others. He partially succeeded, he turned his body away from the knife just as it hit his flesh. Pain exploded from the point as it slashed through his flesh.
The siren blared, he could hear it in his ears even as he began to lose consciousness. His attackers let go and he could hear them all walking away without so much as another word. Sirens were filling the air. All of the first responders that had anticipated this moment the whole night. Most were coming to collect the dead but a few he knew were for the injured and dying. As the morning light faded he wondered if they would get to him on time.
He jerked his head from the memory as the siren began to blare. Darkness had settled over the world around him and the moon shone overhead. Stars painted a myriad across the blackness and it seemed almost serene. Besides the final blare of the siren signifying the start of the purge, murder and rampage were about to shatter the scene. He lifted the mask, a ski mask with a bright yellow smiley face stitched into the fabric.
It was time to smile.