6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1 by Anderson Atlas

jumped or was she pushed off her
balcony? I find her with my binoculars. She’s splattered on the
sidewalk like an orange that had been stepped on. My veins fill up
with a thickness that I’d never felt before. It dulls my thoughts
and anchors me to the bottom of a great and heavy sea. I — I just
want to shut down, hit my power button and blink out of existence.
I look into my kitchen, at the knives on my countertop. Best knives
on the market. Sharp as shark’s teeth with mirco-diamond serrated
edges. I make my way to the darkened kitchen, grab the largest
knife, then stumbled back to the window. The light bit into my head
as though it were the knife. My vision re-adjusted. I know, really
know, that I had something to do with what is going on outside my
window.
    Just then, the clouds part and let a jet
plunge through their dark fluff. Its engine burns. It falls fast
and lands in the distance. A moment later, the glass in front of me
shakes. A cloud of black smoke rises above the skyline. The smoke
merges into the other dark towers of smoke and ash rising from the
skyline.
    I pull out my guitar and try to distract
myself, but I’m too drunk to play. I pop a few sleeping pills and a
couple of sedatives and wash the pills down with some more blue
label scotch. The pills hit me like a kick in the head. I forget
about the world outside and have no more inclinations to leave the
condo. I dance and make jokes and go utterly mad for the next four
or five hours.
    I end up face to face with one of my writing
awards clinging to my wall. It is trapped in a two hundred dollar
frame my father insisted upon purchasing for me. It reads, High
Literary Achievement Award from Columbia University. Awarded to Ian
Gladstone. The type is printed in shiny metallic foil and has
an official looking insignia and fancy borders. I rip it off the
wall and stomp on it. I rip my PEN Award off the wall, too, and
smash it. Finally, I try to sit on my rocking chair but miss the
cushion completely and land on my ass. The room spins and I laugh
again. I laugh hard. I laugh so hard that my head tightens like it
was in a vice, and my eyes tear. The world is so funny. It has
played a joke on me, and I just got the punch line. It’d been so
long since I’d laughed like that. For years I’d taken everything so
seriously. I’d acted as if the world was so broken that I had to
fix it. Maybe I was broken. Who was I trying to fix the world for?
I’m utterly alone.
    Until I’m not.
    The door bursts inward and five big dudes
hustle into my living room. They have a police battering ram,
bulletproof vests, pistols, and batons, but they aren’t officers.
They’re thieves. I sway and gape at their intrusion, still trying
to figure out why I’m as frozen as a bronze statue. The bald guy,
with the wife beater shirt under his vest and the intricate tribal
tattoos covering ninety percent of his body, comes at me. I should
be able to raise my hands, to defend myself or my home, but I
can’t. I’m too fucked up. He brings up the baton and clocks me
across the head. I fall into an abyss of dark swirling nothingness.
It feels like I’ve crawled into the dryer and hit tumble-dry. I’m
not out yet because I can hear them.
    One guys says, “No food.”
    Another snaps, “We’re not here for food,
fool!”
    My closet door bangs open and someone else
rifles through my desk.
    The pounding in my head increases. Warm blood
drips down my forehead. I need to call an ambulance! Shit. The
spinning won’t stop. I want to pull out my phone and call the cops.
Ha! The cops. I’ve railed against the perceived police state in
blogs and articles and never thought I’d need them. Now, here I am
wishing I could call someone to help me.
    I crack my eyes open and watch the guys move
to the door. They’ve got armfuls of expensive clothes, suits, my
computer, back-up hard drive, my guitar, and a box of jewelry my
mother left me. It’s everything of value I have in the world.
Someone