The Assassin Awakens

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Standing in the shadows, partially hidden behind an old full-size piece of plywood that was leaning against the house, Tasha waited. It had been a warm autumn day, but she was cold and shivering after hiding here in the rain for two hours.

To make matters worse, this was the second night she’d stood in this yard.

The previous night she’d positioned herself so that she could make her move as Bobby Wilks approached the front door. She wasn’t aware that he used a back entrance, and when he arrived home last night at 2:40 am, he never entered the area she was in. If she chased him down, the chance of him making noise and attracting attention was too risky.

Last night she felt ready; tonight, she felt cold and was concerned her hands might be numb with only rubber gloves for warmth.

It’d taken her three days to locate and identify Bobby, then follow him to his home and determine his schedule. A couple of days ago, the bare outside lightbulb had mysteriously been shattered in the night, removing most of the illumination in his yard. As expected, no one had yet bothered to replace it.

Tonight, she had on an old dark grey hoodie that she wore inside out to hide a school logo. She’d bought the hoodie at a thrift store two days ago and would re-donate it tomorrow if all went well. Tasha knew her sneakers were leaving tracks in the muddy yard, but they’d come from the same thrift store and were two sizes larger than her feet. She’d discard them off the bridge over the river, several miles away, when on her way home.

At about 2:20 am, a car rolled to a stop. Bobby exited the vehicle, said a few words to the two remaining occupants, then headed toward the house as the car drove off. Since the yard light was out, he moved slowly, not wanting to slip in the mud. He had no reason to look behind the sheet of plywood that had leaned against the house for months.

As he walked past, Tasha stepped out, bringing the Taser pistol up. Bobby detected movement and started to turn.

She fired, and the two steel darts, propelled by compressed air, blasted forward with minimal noise. Thin wires connected the projectiles to the gun. The steel barbs passed through his T-shirt and embedded themselves in his flesh. One was in his right shoulder and the other in the right side of his back.

Fifty thousand volts at 3.5 milliamps traveled at light speed down the wires from the pistol to the embedded barbs. The electric charge immediately overwhelmed Bobby Wilks’ central nervous system. He yelped once, then hit the ground as every muscle in his body contracted. The continual shock lasted thirty seconds. The intent was for the person using the device to drop it and run from a would-be attacker.

That didn’t happen. As the shock continued, Tasha, safe from the Taser’s effects, forced Bobby’s right arm flat and pinned his wrist to the ground with her knee. Taking one hand, she grasped his upper arm and, using all her strength and weight, restricted the blood flow returning to the heart from the lower arm. This makeshift tourniquet caused the vein in the crook of the arm by the elbow to become engorged with blood and stand up. The vein was visible in the dark thanks to the micro-LED flashlight Tasha held in her mouth. Using the other hand, she took the 10cc syringe, thumbed off the cap to free the needle, and expertly inserted it into the enlarged vein of the still twitching arm. As she finished pressing the syringe’s plunger, she released the upper arm, allowing the extremely potent pain medication to surge into Bobby’s body.

Very carefully, she recapped the needle and slid the syringe into the belt pouch at her hip. Taking a small set of plyers from the pouch, she ripped the Taser barbs, which had finally stopped their assault on Bobby, out of his flesh.

Already, the massive dose of fentanyl had removed any pain from the Taser and its barbs. Bobby’s consciousness and respiratory drive rapidly faded.

She swiped away a drop of blood that had formed at the injection site with her gloved thumb, got up, and walked away.

In the bushes of a neighboring house was the bicycle she’d stashed there. She’d stolen it on her walk up from her car. The bike was much too small for her, but it still allowed her to speed up the quarter-mile trip back to her vehicle.

By the time she reached the car, her adrenaline level was returning to normal, but the thrill of the kill was just peaking.