Episode Details

The Devil's Trick
by Shadowswimmer77
There’s a lotta darkness in this world. That’s a lowercase ‘d’ dark, mind ya. There’s also the capital ‘D’ kind, but that’s another kinda thing all together. Now, some people’ll tell ya that it’s the big Darkness that ya gotta watch out for, and in some ways they’d be right. Could’a agreed with them on that a long time before a good friend’a mine went and showed me just how far down the crazy rabbit hole goes. Demons, vampires, all’a that Monster Madness bullshit…turns out it ain’t quite as much malarkey as yer rational mind’d like ya to believe.
That enormous Darkness, well, that’s biblical, end’a the world type stuff. But the thing about that, it’s obvious, y’see? That kinda thing, any number of people’ll stand up ta fight it. It’s basic human survival. S’why there’s so many damned zombie uprising fantasies out there: everybody wants ta grab their shotgun and go get them some sweet hot action. Goddamn mastabatory is what it is. And that’s why there ain’t no way in hell the world’ll ever end that way.
We’d know that if we’d just pay attention. Society and culture’s got any number’a references to the little darkness bein’ the one ta get ya. The world won’t end in a bang but a whimper. The road ta hell is paved with good intentions. An’ my personal favorite: the devil’s in tha details.
This is a story about those details, and that devil. If yer lookin’ for some kinda action movie blockbuster finish I’d ask ya ta get off now, cause there won’t be any’a that. Plenty’a other places ya can go fer all the vicarious thrills and heroics ya could ever want. I’d encourage ya ta do so. All yer gonna do is just be makin’ my point for me. Big evil’s excitin’ and stimulates the imagination, but people can’t be bothered with the little one. S’why it’s so damn insidious.
Anybody still here? Then let’s set tha stage. A few years back I was in a pretty bad way. My only boy Billy’d been killed on his way home from basketball practice by a junky lookin’ ta make a quick score. I live outsida Philly an’ such things still aren’t unheard of, though they’re a lot less common nowadays, thank God. Anyways, my boy was dead and his mom an’ I ended up splitting up soon after due ta the stress. I managed ta get myself fired from my job and mosta my days were spent either crawlin’ outta the bottom of a bottle or searchin’ around, seeing if I could get a line on his killer. Most’a the time both.
Well, one day I found tha bastard. Punk wuz crashed at a flop house, high outta his mind, sprawled on’a mattress stained with dirt an’ God knows what else. I walked up ta my boy’s killer, an’ considered him. He was young, only a few years older’n Billy probly, jaw covered by a little scraggle’a yellow beard. He was wearin’ this stupid knit cap, a whole buncha striped colors. It’s how I knew fer sure I had the right guy, that cap was the only detail the one witness of my boy’s murder could remember.
I grabbed the filthy pillow lyin’ next ta him an’ set it atop’a his glazed face before pullin’ out my forty-five ta finish the deed. I sat there for what felt like forever but was probably only a minute’r two, the barrel of my gun makin’ a depression in tha pillow where I was pushin’ it down against his forehead. It’s not like we were tha only people in the room, all around me were a buncha other junkies crashed in various stages of fucked up. But at the same time it was just him, an’ me, an’ the gun.
My hand was shakin’, from fear, and rage, an’ adrenaline, and there was this little kernel of blackness somewhere inside my chest just screamin’ at me ta pull the trigger. An’ somehow, some way…I didn’t. I stumbled outta that crack house feelin like a balloon that’s had all’a its air let out, just totally drained. It ain’t that I never killed before, got plenty’a that in a handful’a tours to Iraq. But this woulda been the first time I committed murder, and brother, if ya don’t think there’s a dif