This Rotten World (Book 1) by The Vocabulariast Page B

were locked in an embrace, and though his neighbor's punches
landed with a meaty thud every time, the other man seemed to not even notice
them.
    Blood from
the man's jaw dripped down his neighbor's chest, and he could see that he had
busted his knuckles open on the man. The man with the bleeding jaw seemed
oblivious to the fact that the bone structure of his face had been completely
rearranged.
    His
neighbor was tired and sweaty, and his blows landed with less and less ferocity
and frequency. Somehow, his neighbor noticed him peeking out his doorway.
"Oi, fatstuff, why don't you get out here and help me?"
    The split
second it took his neighbor to call out to him was enough of a distraction for
the man with the bleeding jaw to get a thick bite in on the bicep of the
British man. His neighbor popped the man across the chin, and teeth came flying
out, along with a chunk of his own flesh from his knuckles.
    "I'm
calling the cops!" he informed his neighbor before he slammed his own door
shut. He turned the deadbolt on his door and ran to the furthest corner of his
apartment. He used his pudgy fingers to dial 911, but the number was busy just
as it was before. He could still hear his neighbor and the man struggling in
the hallway. This night sucked.

Chapter 20: Never Too Late
     
    Dustin
stood out front with the cops. He had told them his entire story, but they
didn't quite believe every word of it. Luckily, they had received a steady
stream of calls, so they were in a hurry to be out and about. They took down
his statement and his information, and when the crime scene photographer had
left and the coroner had arrived, they let him go about his business. One of
them told him not to leave town, but Dustin knew how these things worked. He
could leave whenever he wanted to. They'd find him eventually.
    He laughed
in his head at the sight of Old Han yelling at him in broken English about him
cleaning up the mess he had made. He simply hopped on his throwback bicycle
with the chrome fenders, gave Han the finger, and rode away.
    In the
night, Han had yelled, "Fuck to you! You fuck to you!"
    Dustin
doubted that the man would ever learn proper English, but when you've got all
the money, you can afford to treat people like heartless products. He rode down
the street, pondering it all, the unfairness of a wannabe despot hiring good
people, the wind in his hair, and the silence of the night. Most of all, he
pondered the fact that two people had died tonight, and he had witnessed both
of them.
    The feeling
of shock hit him suddenly, as is the case with most haunting experiences, the
true impact of them seems delayed, like that moment when you cut your finger
and it takes a few seconds for the blood to actually come pouring out. Dustin
slowed to a halt, hopped off of his bike without thinking and sat down on the
curb.
    He put his
head in his hands and tried to press the images out of his mind with the palms of
his hands. All that seemed to accomplish was making his eyes ache dully. He
reached into the pocket of his camouflage cargo shorts and fished out a
cigarette. He put it to his lips and lit it. In the smoke that he exhaled, he
swore he could see the image of the young man that had stumbled into the bar.
Death had walked into the bar tonight, and he was the only one that had left it
alive. Well, him and Teach, but who knew where he was.
    At that
moment, he saw his life with a burning clarity that few people ever see.
Pouring drinks for drunks... how did his life wind up that way? What kind of
life is that? It's certainly not what he dreamed of when he had been a kid. He
could still remember his father's bearded face asking him what he had wanted to
be when he grew up. The answer had always been the same... a lawyer.
    While the
thought of being a lawyer made him feel stupid and naive now, it wasn't the
money or the prestige that he wanted; it had always been the ability to help
people that had drawn him to the profession. Who did he help