Reverse Metamorphosis book one of the Irrevocable Change trilogy (5 page)

Clay’s lips formed a cruel smile and he
replied, “Go to hell Asshole.” As he turned the wheel on the
lighter he said, “I can’t fight a dead man, and you are a dead
man.”

It was obvious O’Neil was coherent and
understood what was said by the terrified look on his face as he
screamed for help. As Clay moved past the broken rear window he
tossed the lit firecracker toward the opening. Flames instantly
erupted from the shattered opening and both front windows as he was
moving toward the back of the pick-up. O’Neil had been screaming
insanely since Clay spoke to him, and then was silent as the smoke
and flames seared his lungs. He moved around the ends of both
trucks and saw O’Neil through the smoke in the light of the flames.
He was alive and slowly moving his right arm, as if he was trying
to push the heat and agony away. Clay took the pistol out of his
pocket, and through the flames and dense smoke shot two bullets
into the side of O’Neil’s head. O’Neil’s arm lunged toward the roof
of the truck cab and his head jerked feebly before the arm dropped
to his side and his torso fell forward against the steering wheel.
Clay had learned there were some things he didn’t have the stomach
for, and enjoying or even tolerating horrible suffering was one of
them.

Once back in the cab of the flatbed, he
maneuvered the truck away from the pick up with difficulty. The
black Chevy had been jammed against and under the flatbed from its
impact with the abutment, causing the larger truck’s outer left
rear tire to rupture. It took three attempts at backing up and
pulling forward before the trucks disengaged. While picking up
speed, he watched in the rear view mirror as lights approached and
a car pulled to the right hand side of the roadway back at the
“wreck”. Another car was approaching him in the opposite lane on
the other side of the guardrail. The faster the truck ran the
louder the deflated rear tire thumped against the frame until it
disintegrated and was finally tossed off the rim.

Surprisingly, he didn’t experience the giddy,
emotional, high and low feelings he had gotten when he had
accidentally killed the Loudmouth attacker. He was actually calmer
than before killing O’Neil. There wasn’t a particularly good
feeling about what he had done, but yet a sense justification His
feelings reminded him of the punch line of a joke he had heard
about a valid defense for murder cases in Texas: he needed killing.
He speculated the three weeks spent planning the hit down to the
finite details had conditioned him to what was coming, and left him
without a high degree of emotion in the act. He was having some
problem keeping the up close and personal images of Jerry O’Neil in
his final minutes of life out of his mind. He wondered if the
visual images and the screams would stay with him forever, or if
they too would fade and finally dissipate after enough time. He
hoped so, because right then, they were extremely vivid and very,
very loud.

At the quarry entrance, he drove the truck
onto the gravel road and once again wrapped the chain around the
gates to hold them closed. Up at the point where the fence had been
cut, the truck was maneuvered across the roadway, facing toward the
quarry pit.

The shotgun was removed from the cab and tied
to the dirt bike with the towels still taped around it. From the
box left with the bike earlier, a large plastic bowl with a flat
lid was removed and filled with gasoline from the metal can. The
plastic bowl, and what remained in the two gallon gas can were
placed in the cab on the passenger’s side of the seat; the
cardboard box was put in the driver’s seat. A 2” x 4” x 8’ long
wood stud was removed from the bed, inserted through both windows
and wired to the steering wheel to hold it in position. With the
hood raised and the help of a flashlight Clay located the throttle
lever, stretching a wire from it to a solid tie-off point. As the
engine speed was increased from idle to about two thousand RPM, the
wire was secured to maintain the speed.

The bike was moved to the middle of the
gravel road, kick started, and left idling ready for his
escape.

Three sparklers left over from some previous
Fourth of July were lit and stuck through the fabric along the top
of the back seat cushion. After checking to assure himself all was
ready, Clay reached in the driver’s window and moved the shift
lever from park, down to drive. The big truck lurched; the engine
spit several times, but didn’t die as it picked up the load. Having
jumped off the side of the door step, Clay watched as the truck
picked up speed, rumbling toward the cliff. When the front wheels
rolled over the edge, the chassis dropped onto the dirt; the
momentum it had built up carried it past the fulcrum point until
the front end slowly began to tip. Then, the rest of the truck slid
across the soft dirt at the rim. The rear tires hung up for a split
second on the layer of stone below the dirt cover before giving up
their tenuous grip. Before the end of the bed went out of sight the
entire pit was lit up with a dull orange glow; the gasoline had
slid off the seat, spilled and ignited from the flame of the
sparklers. Several moments later a subdued crunching and tearing of
metal lasted about three seconds. Then another orange glow again
lit up the huge and deep quarry as the diesel tank ruptured, lost
its full load of fuel, and ignited.

After pulling on a light weight jacket he
straddled the bike; it would feel good before the ride was
completed. He put the pistol in the right pocket, and then put the
bike in gear and headed for the escape exit. The engine was running
like it was new as he began the trip out of the quarry back to
Jimmy’s house. The air was cool but he was hot and sweaty from the
fast paced activities of the last fifteen minutes in addition to
the adrenaline rush experienced back at the overpass. Clay thought
of the two dead men he had been involved with over the last several
months and the irony of life. He had never intended to be part of
the criminal element; he had no desire to follow Jimmy and Tony’s
lives. His role had been that of an onlooker, an outsider who lived
on the fringe of their world, but with ties and personal
connections to its roots. Now circumstances had placed him at the
outer perimeter of a whirlpool and forces were pulling him toward
the vortex. Where the spinning mass would take him he had no clear
vision; and he dared not guess at this point. What he did know was
he had consciously chosen to change his life forever, and now it
was too late to turn back.

In the middle of a bridge over a small river
Clay stopped the bike in the narrow right shoulder lane at the
center span. He waited until there were no cars approaching from
either direction to remove the pistol from his jacket pocket. After
wiping the pistol frame clean, he flung it over the railing into
the murky waters, listening as it broke the surface fifty feet
below.

After turning the corner half a block away
from Jimmy’s house he killed the engine and pushed the light weight
bike back to the garage. By the light of the neighbors dusk to dawn
lighting he maneuvered from the garage through the house to put the
shot gun back in the closet where Jimmy had kept it, after wiping
it down as a precaution. Clay took the towels from the shotgun and
the second hand clothing he had bought and put them in a brown
paper grocery bag. While putting his own clothing back on he took a
last look at his friends belongings and before leaving said aloud,
“Good by Jimmy G.; I miss you”. After locking the garage door he
walked up the street to where he had parked his car in the next
block, got in, and drove to a small shopping mall where he
deposited the used clothing in a dumpster. Leaving the mall, he
continued home, not all sure he could sleep, even though his body
and mind felt drained of energy.

When he slipped between the sheets he
immediately began to unwind. Then, out of the tangled visual and
audio images of the less than two minutes it took to end a life, he
again saw clearly the smug gloating look he perceived seeping
through the terror O’Neil was experiencing. He relived O’Neil
spitting out the accusation “Then we're alike. You’re nothing but a
damn cowardly assassin.” The words hit him with such impact that
his stomach muscles contracted involuntarily and he gasped out loud
as he struggled to get a fresh breath into his lungs. The
expression of disgust and loathing directed at him caused him to
cringe from his self proclaimed role of avenger. Why hadn’t he
fought O’Neil one on one, man to man? Why? It was simple; because
he wasn’t sure he would win. His objective from the start had been
revenge: murder. O’Neil had been tried, convicted and sentenced in
the court of Albrecht. But he hadn’t anticipated the accusation
hurled at him by his victim; or its impact on his conscience. As if
he still had a conscience. When exhaustion finally let him drift
off to an uneasy sleep he continued to spar in his nightmare with
the shadowy image of the late Jerry O’Neil.

He got up at ten thirty to shower, shave and
dress. In the kitchen he fixed a late breakfast of sausage and
egg’s while warming some pancakes left over from the families
earlier breakfast. He was also thinking about what to do next. He
decided against telling Tony what had happened until later. The
police would find O’Neil’s death was certainly not an accident
after an autopsy was performed. During the police investigation
O’Neil’s friends, family and co-workers would likely be
interrogated. Those conversations would lead them to the connection
with Jimmy’s death, and probably to Tony. Tony would be better off
at this point to be ignorant of any of the details concerning
O’Neil’s death. The police would find the link to Tony and take him
in for questioning. He had been interrogated many times and could
likely handle it better if he wasn’t already informed of O’Neil’s
connection to Jimmy’s death. The look in his eyes and the
expression on his face would be genuine surprise as the police lay
out their assembled evidence and suspicions of O’Neil’s connection
to Jimmy’s death. The police wouldn’t believe him, but would have
no evidence to prove their suspicions.

His mother came in from the living room where
she had been reading the Sunday morning news paper saying “Walt and
I certainly haven’t seen much of you lately. What have you been up
to these past several days?” Before he could answer she continued,
“Maria’s bringing the kids down for a few days next week. I do hope
you’ll be around to visit with them. I know the two of them create
a ruckus, but they really like their Uncle Clayton and are looking
forward to seeing you.”

Clay was at the stove and said over his
shoulder “I’ll be around Mom. I plan to go over to the union hall
tomorrow and sign up to go back to work. Even though I don’t have
much seniority there may be something open. I’ve come to terms with
my feelings about the loss of Jimmy and I’ll just have to go on,
although he was the best friend I ever had and I’ll never forget
him.”

Walt came in to get a glass of iced tea, said
“Hi Clayton” and went back to finish whatever he was watching on
the television. Margaret came around the table to give him a hug
and whispered in his ear “It's sad Jimmy never got to know just how
good a friend he had in you, but I know and I think you’re
wonderful.” Clay didn’t want to speculate on how wonderful his
mother would think he was if she knew about his vigilante action in
the name of friendship.

Margaret went back to the living room and
picked up the travel section of the paper she had been reading.
But, instead of going back to her reading she sat and thought about
Clayton.

He had lettered in football, making the
starting squad. She often wished he had been as interested in
studying and making good grades as he was in playing sports. He had
passed and been advanced each year but had never excelled in any of
his studies. She was glad he wasn’t a pretty boy, they often turned
out to be shallow and without character. While Clayton had passed
through his teenage years his complexion had cleared and the
occasional pimples he had endured ceased to appear. His face was
rather square, with brown eyes set far apart, which fit his stocky
frame. His nose was full but not too broad. His hands were large,
with long fingers, and were attached to thick wrist and muscular
forearms.

In step with the times he wore his dark brown
hair fairly long though high school and then right after graduation
decided on his own to have Walter cut it shorter.

During his high school years she had implored
Clayton to prepare for collage. But, he was only interested in
getting a job right out of high school. Walter even offered to pay
for him to attend barbers collage and upon graduation work in
Walter’s shop, which he had expanded to eight chairs.

Clayton however decided to make use of an
offer from Jimmy who said his dad could get both of them into the
laborers union. He and Jimmy had been working on construction until
Jimmy’s death. It wasn’t what she had hoped he would accomplish,
but it was honest work.

After supper two days later, Walter was
reading the evening paper and pointed out to Margaret a front page
article stating the death of Jimmy Giliano may not have been an
accident. There had been several altercations between him and a man
who witnesses said had claimed to have killed Giliano. The man,
identified as Jerry O’Neil, had been brutally murdered two nights
earlier while on his way home. The murder had the marking of a
professional revenge killing due to the brutal way the man was
killed. The police had taken Tony Giliano in for questioning but
had released him due to lack of any evidence connecting him to the
crime. The investigation was on going, but the District Attorney
stated at present there were no clues or suspects in the
killing.