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Helpless Angel

Chapter: 8

Gluttony

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Gideon wanted to run away.

Nathan and Rudy had been calling him endlessly two days ago. "What's going on?" "Who is this guy?" "Aren't we supposed to be protected?" "Who's he going to kill next?" "I don't wanna die, Gid! I don't wanna!!"

Shit, he cursed. Let them handle it themselves.

There was a knock at the door. "Let me in."

"Go away."

The door burst open and a man who looked like Gideon's clone entered. The two men stood face to face and both stared at each other for a while.

"I am going to add up security."

"Please, father." Gideon stared at him, defiant, arrogant.

"Don't you father me!" His voice boomed in the room that Gideon felt the whole house fell silent. "Not after what you've done to disgrace our family and especially yourself."

"You could have disowned me," Gideon replied lazily. "Wouldn't that be better?"

His father fell silent. The anger in his eyes would have been too much for someone else but Gideon had learnt to live under those eyes from the moment he knew his father. "I don't want securities, father. I don't want people snooping around me. I hate people snooping around me."

"Then you leave me with no choice." With that he walked out and three able-bodied men entered. They locked the door behind them and stayed there.

Gideon was way beyond mad. "Fuck you!" he shouted. Grabbing a delicate vase of bonsai he threw it at the door; the three men ducked away. The plant bounced out of the vase and moved a little before lying still, like breathing its last air

.

Rudy and Nathan stared at each other worriedly. They had been doing that since two days ago.

"I can't go on eating this shit forever," Nathan said. He pushed away the half-empty can of sardines and the loaf of bread they had been living off. "I have to have real food."

"And risk yourself getting shot, strangled or stabbed at?" Rudy shifted on his cushion. "No way."

"Are you sure this spot is safe?"

"I don't think anyone's been here since they put up a notice up front." The building was condemned a few months ago, but demolition had not been smooth. So this building was left standing here. "Besides, that crazy murderer wouldn't think of looking us here."

Nathan glanced at him nervously. "Would he?"

Rudy stared at him reproachfully. "Of course he won't!" A small nervous feeling grew in him even as he sounded confident. "He won't know us here."

They fell silent for a while. Then Nathan sighed. "I shouldn't have agreed on that idea, man. That had been downright stupid and... well, stupid." He didn't want to say uncivilised because that would mean he himself was included. The son of a respected manager wouldn't want to call himself uncivilised.

Rudy snorted scornfully. "You seemed to enjoy her the most."

Nathan smiled in spite of himself. "She was a great piece, wasn't she? She had this great body, man. I wonder how did she manage to stay virgin."

Rudy nodded. "That was rather nice." As if this talk aroused his hunger for more than this ware they had Rudy said, "Come on. I don't think the murderer is on the street all the time. We could grab some burgers at the nearby fast food joint."

Nathan immediately brightened to the idea.



"Hey, I get lots of sugar," Nathan said.

They finally decided to eat there. Although Nathan cautioned him that the murderer had done Mark in the open, Rudy countered him with the fact that the restaurant had cameras at every corner. "If anything suspicious happens, they will alert the police and that man would be caught pronto."

"Give me some," Rudy said, grabbing two packets of it. Soon he was stirring his cup of tea. Nathan followed suit and ate his beef burger first. He sighed when the first mouthful entered his gullet. "Oh yeah," he said. "This is real food."

Rudy drank his tea first. They had no water back in that building, so he had bought a cup of tea and a coke. He sipped slowly at it, then faster when the tea had gotten colder.

"I think we should go home right now, Rudy." He was starting on the second burger. "I think no one is after us. Don't you think so?"

"You know what I think?" Rudy asked. "I think you should stop thinking."

While Nathan sulked and ate his burger Rudy noticed the sugar sachet had something sticking out of it. Intrigued, he took it out. Probably some sort of a gimmick, he thought. Rudy unfolded it and started reading it as he drank his tea.

Do you like your coffee/tea?

Another gimmick, Rudy thought, staring at the printed matter.

Does it taste better than the usual sugar? That's because this is unusual! We have added a few interesting ingredients! Do you feel your throat burning now?

Rudy scowled at it. When he was about to toss it away he felt a burning in his throat. He read on, curious.

You do? Good. Because the poison is already in your system -

What the hell? Rudy's eyes widened..

-and you cannot get any medical attention because the antidote can be found only in South Borneo. How does that feel, sir? Do you enjoy your coffee/tea? Does this beat raping a helpless nineteen year-old girl?

Rudy was gurgling out something nasty in his throat. Nathan looked up from his burger and was about to ask him what's the noise all about. He couldn't.

Rudy was regurgitating blood out of his mouth. He tried to cover it up with his hands but his blood simply gushed out uncontrollably. Some fell on Rudy's untouched burgers and fries. They looked alarmingly like chilli sauce. Nathan was speechless with horror. The burger fell out of his hands.

Rudy felt his whole body was burning. Oh my God what the hell is this? How did he do this? How did he manage to poison me? Blood continued to gush out like from a broken dam. Rudy's shirtfront and lower face was soaked in red by now and someone probably noticed it and started screaming. His head suddenly seemed heavy and it fell upon the table, hard. The letter he had just read now covered his eyes briefly.

Do you enjoy your last meal?



Nathan meanwhile was frozen with horror. Then he stood up and gave way to the workers who checked Rudy's pulse and said to someone to call the police and the ambulance. Nathan managed a croak, then his voice, when it came out, was screaming.

"It's the murderer! It's him! He wants all of us to die!" Rudy was staring at him with glassy eyes that held no more life. Blood continued to flow out of his mouth, his nose, his ears... everywhere on his body where there was a hole. "He wants all of us to die!!!"

"Young man, stay calm," said someone behind him and held his shoulders. He wildly pulled himself away from the person and stared at the people who had gathered around Rudy.

"It's you!" he said, pointing at a woman who was looking back at him in surprise. "Or you! Or you! It could be all of you! Help!! Police!!"

With that he ran out of the restaurant screaming. When he was on the pavement he looked to his left and right wildly before someone grabbed him by the jaw, pushed him back toward the door and pressed his head against the glass door. In the darkness Nathan saw a gleam of metal.

"No..." he whispered. "No... please God, no..."

For a moment the gleaming metal disappeared. Then: "Do you like the way you plead?"

The voice was cold, but Nathan nodded. He'd do anything to escape this.

"Do you think I like the way you pleaded?"

He nodded. Vigorously.

"Wrong answer," the voice said. Nathan's eyes widened when he felt something was shoved into his mouth. It tasted metallic.

"Because you should have known better than to rape a nineteen-year-old girl."

The mirror door shattered and the people inside the restaurant screamed. The last thing they saw was a figure walking away from the teenager who was descending onto the ground with a trail of blood and white matter down the shattered door.



That night Warren took a three-hour bubble bath and drank the same flat champagne with the frame facing him.

"This is the best champagne ever!" he said to himself.