Knock Knock

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sounds of a fist pounding on a door in that college dorm in the middle of the day had Jose stirring up from the couch, grunting at having been interrupted from his Game of Thrones binge session. “Ay, I don’t know who the fuck is at the door, but I’m comin’! Gimme a second!” Shouting with a laugh hitching at his voice. Who knew the word ‘fuck’ could sound so friendly? It did though, as if he were the most easy going person on the planet, but he didn’t get to open the door though, as soon as he moved to rattle the doorknob to unlock it, a foot was colliding with the frame at just the right way, at the right angle..

SSHHH-NAK!

The swift sound of wood splintering from an irresistible force colliding with it hit like the sound of a freight train’s whistle. It was almost as bad as the door smacking right into Jose’s face and sending him stumbling into a wall five feet behind him, a blinding pain in his now bloodied nose that had him nearly blinded from the disorienting force that’d rendered him damn near incoherent for just a moment. “Knock, Knock, motha’ fucka’.” Those cajun accented words came hard from behind the mask that asshole was wearing, the same asshole who planted a hard boot into Jose’s chest to slam him back against that wall as he tried to rise up.

“I don’ lak stalkers, Jose.” Came that strangely baritone rumble from behind the facade of a skull painted ballistic mask as its owner crouched down just passed the doorway, inches away from the latino youth that he’d rocked using the very door that splintered off of its frame. Long and lanky, with a slim silhouette and coltish limbs. He was swathed in black, from the biker’s kutte he wore over his hoodie to the boots an’ jeans that seemed to flow down from a hand crafted leather belt, studded with the back end of 10mm Auto casings. That ballistic mask though, it was emblazoned with a white skull, painted up as if he was an edgy, wannabe, Baron Samedi who got high one too many times while watching Sons of Anarchy and the Night Before Christmas. This was what was leering over the kid with boundary issues, crouching down so that he was inches from the teenager’s face, his right hand tugging out the knife from his belt, the faint ‘sshk’ of steel clearing leather resonating throughout the apartment building, contrasting sharply against the background noise of Game of Thrones playing in the other room. “I reaallly don’ lak stalk– Don’t you fuckin’ move, Mon Ami. Done tol’ you I don’ lak no stalka’.” His voice was quieter still, obfuscated blue eyes starting to narrow in scrutiny as the nineteen year old made a reasonable move to back away from what probably seemed to be a psychopath. A faint whimper came from the teen who was between being a boy and a man, his back against the wall, his hand clutching his nose from when the door smacked into it like a battering ram when the home invader made his grand entrance.

“What! What do you fuckin’ want, meng!?” Shouting, and shouting loudly, shrilly even, his voice breaking slightly from a mixture of fear and outright confusion.
“A reckoning, Jose.”
“Wha-what!? The fuck does that mean?”
“Eh, nothing. Just thought it’d be cool to say.” The lackadaisical nature in which he admitted that was almost astounding in how casual it was. It was almost painful in what would have been second hand embarrassment had anyone else been around.
“…huh?” Jose asked, clearly perplexed by what almost seemed to be a ludicrous turn of events. “Is thi-this a j-joke?” He asked, again, stammering out his words.

A sigh left the mask, and for a moment, Rylan seemed more annoyed than anything, lifting up that knife so Jose could see it. “Dis? Naw, dis ain’t no joke. See, Jose, I married a woman. Beautiful woman, kind an’ caring. Oh, don’ get me wrong, she can be a real bitch when she’s tested, but she’s got the patience of a saint, seriously.” Rambling, maybe even a little bit ranting, Rylan lifted his off hand to Jose’s chin and gripped it, eyes narrowing behind his mask as he edged the knife forward with his other hand. “She’s got a niece, see. Ornery lil thang. Angrier than her aunt. She’s bout’cho age. Good girl, smart girl. You know dat, obviously, ‘cause you been harassing Blossom somedin’ fierce since y’all broke up now, I can’t abide you harassing dat girl, scarin’ her lak dat.” Sighing, again, as if the whole thing was more of a nuisance than an act of violence on his behalf. “See, if dis was up to me, Jose, I’d just put two in ya ches’, an’ then dump the rest of da magazine up in yo’ brainbox.” He said with a tap of the knife to Jose’s temple, marking it just a bit with the tip, cutting just enough to make the boy hiss, to make him jerk his head away from the knife.

“Man, I ain’t did shit! Not shit! She was leading me on and I ca–” His words were cut off then as that free hand drifted down and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulling him forward as the edge of his knife was pressed tight against his cheek, right below the knife. “Stop! I didn’t do shit!” He screamed back, his hands trying to grab the former ranger’s arms, but he just dug into the skin harder with the knife, cutting into his cheek by dragging it, just a bit, just enough to tear the skin, to make him bleed.

“Nah, bon homme, dis about dat. Dis ain’ no trial, dis is sentencin’. Now, you can leave da girl alone an’ shut’cha trap, or you can impugnin’ ‘pon her honor, and I get real fuckin’ biblical on some old testamen’ shit. An eye for lookin’, a tongue for false testimony, a hand for tryna touch an’..” Swiftly, before Jose could act, before he could grab Ry’s hand, he’d dropped it down and clutched a hold of what was between the man’s legs an’ grabbing as hard as he could, getting a howl of pain, a sputtering series of cries to stop in a mix of English and Spanish. Rylan silenced it though, by letting up on his grip an’ pressing forward with the knife, cutting just a bit more into his skin. “Ssh. Shut up. Guyate. No more talkin’, mon ami. You talk to Blossom, you look at Blossom, you even think about buying a pair of the socks she fuckin’ makes, I’m gonna do th’ kinds of things t’you tha’s gonna leave you so fuckin’ confused that the only place you can use th’bathroom at is Target, y’dig?” His accent got thicker, more fiery, a certain amount of anger in his tone, pullin’ that hand back to push his mask away so that Jose could see his face.

Gaunt. Haunted. Blue eyes an’ high cheekbones and a swathe of black hair with the tiniest bits of gray here and there, looking surprisingly younger than he sounded. That was the face that Jose was forced to look into as Rylan kept the knife pressed to Jose’s face. “You see this face, an’ you remember ih’. You remember wha’ I look lak. You go to th’cops, you come after me, you talk to Blossom? Dhere ain’ no place where some fuckboy lak you can hide from me. Her aunt, she wanted me to keep you intact, didn’t want you hurt too bad. You’re just a stupid boy.” He muttered, getting closer, getting to the point where he could smell the blood and the sinus fluid leaking from Jose’s nose. “You gettin’ what I’m layin’ down, Mon Ami? You understan’ me, or do I gotta give you some homemade gender reassignment surgery?” He asked, sliding the knife down, just a bit, leaving a thin, red, line in its wake, keeping his eyes locked on his.

“Man I.. I got you. Please. Just leave me alone. No more calls, nothin’. Honest. I fuckin’ swear, man. Please!” Shouting again, breathing hard, terrified as he leaned back into the wall. Rylan believed him, so that’s why when he took away the knife? He was standing up.

And then he was slamming a foot right into his groin, and when he screamed? He was silencing him with a downward right hammerfist, smashing the pommel of his knife into the man’s temple, hitting that ‘night night’ button that sent him into a knocked out slump over to the side. That was how Rylan operated though, wasn’t it? Recklessly, angrily, and with the kind of blundering swiftness Sun Tzu rambled on about it. Knife in hand, he was resheathing it, and tapping the side of that mask as if he was salutin’ to the knocked out youth slumped out against the wall before turning around and walking out of that place, as if he wasn’t dressed like an edgy version of a bad comic book character that no one had ever heard of, as if he hadn’t just busted down a door and assaulted and battered someone.

Though, in a moment of startling normalcy, he was pulling out his android phone when it rattled in his pocket, checking the text out as it came and groaned. “How the fuck are we out of dutch chocolate milk already..?” He questioned, exiting the building, and pulling that mask off of his face and tucking it within his Seventh Sons Kutte, shaking his head in a mixture of mild disbelief. “Six gallons a month, at least, it has to be…”