Free Mafia Trilogy 03 - The Scythe by Jonas Saul

the wall. They covered Darwin’s chest and stomach in foodstuffs.
     
    He dropped to his butt. Peach juice and chunks of red jam filled the room with an intense strawberry smell.
     
    Scythe had retreated from the door, retching around the corner.
     
    Then Darwin remembered what Yuri had said about The Scythe.
     
    Half the time he ends up in the hospital on an IV if he eats the wrong thing. Scy worked himself up so much about food that he can’t even be near it much anymore. He juices.
     
    He’d had a stomach injury. That’s why he wasn’t at the restaurant that day.
     
    Still in socks and underwear, Darwin got to his feet. He couldn’t believe a body could be so wracked with pain. His back screamed, his face ached and he was afraid to look at the damage to his hands after all the abuse he’d rained down on them, even though his vision was clearing.
     
    On the verge of exhaustion, his stamina was all but gone. But he had no choice. Fall asleep here and never wake up, or get out of the house and sleep away from this mad world.
     
    In his sock feet, he tried to step around the shards of glass, but picked a couple up on the way to the door. All he could smell was the jam dripping off this chest and belly. Peaches clung to his white underwear, making the blood stains look like an abstract collage of colors that had been painted on him.
     
    Scythe was on the floor near the stairs, passed out, vomit covering his chin and neck, clumps of it resting on his chest. It was a liquid green mess.
     
    Darwin leaned against the wall. His legs threatened to not support him.
     
    I have to get out of here.
     
    He picked up the gun and hobbled over to Scythe. On his way past the wire grid he realized that soaking his jeans in the toilet had helped him fry the man to the grid. It was one thing to be electrocuted—but quite something else to be electrocuted with sopping wet denim wrapped around your neck.  
     
    After checking the safety on the weapon, Darwin aimed it at Scythe’s forehead from one foot away.
     
    Then he pulled the trigger.
     
    Nothing happened. He pulled again. Nothing.
     
    That’s why Scythe dropped it.
     
    There was no energy left in him to search for more bullets. If he didn’t leave now, he would pass out.
     
    The stairs were like walking up the side of a mountain. He collected himself at the top, breathed in deep and waited for his heartbeat to calm.
     
    He pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway. Both ways, the house was empty.
     
    Darwin put one foot in front of the other and walked to the front door of the house, leaving bloody footsteps behind him from the glass wounds. Chunks of peaches and jams slipped off his body and mixed with the blood.
     
    He opened the door and the sun hit his skin, warming him. He walked outside and started across the grass.
     
    Yuri’s house was on the end of a cul de sac with no other houses on either side. It was like he bought the whole block and then just had his house built there.
     
    Someone yelled behind him. Darwin turned on his heels and almost lost his balance. He couldn’t take anymore.
     
    Behind Yuri’s house was an expanse of green.
     
    A golf course.
     
    The man who had yelled slapped another’s hand in the air and dropped his driver in the bag on the back of a golf cart.
     
    The other man stepped up to the tee, took two practice swings, and then tried to murder the ball. He cursed and slammed his club into the ground at his feet.
     
    Darwin started toward them. He raised a hand and tried to shout.
     
    The men dropped into their cart and sped off.
     
    Darwin made it to the edge of the golf course grounds and started for the tee box. He stumbled halfway there, fell to his hands, and dropped to his knees. He couldn’t walk any farther, so he crawled. With each lift of his knee, and each bit he crawled, he expected to pass out.
     
    The tee box marker came into view below him.
     
    He stopped, fell to his side and rolled onto his