Hooked

Borderlands issue 5, March 2005

I like to think of myself as a gentle man, a kind man, but that night I found myself damning Pete’s black soul, damning it to the seven circles of hell, to rot and burn and suffer as it deserved. If it wasn’t for that cocksure braggart and his renegade gang, I’d have been curled up in bed at home, sleeping soundly, instead of standing outside a darkened nightclub in the hour before midnight, carrying a parcel for the Captain, reflexively glancing around nervously for the predators in Nikes that roamed the streets after dark. I was safe from them, of course; they knew better than to lay a finger – or anything else – on me. But that didn’t ease my mind. I was more concerned about what was inside the club. Not to mention what was inside the box I’d picked up less than an hour earlier from James’ contact at the hospital. It was damnably heavy, and just big enough to fit a human head in it. I hoped to God it wasn’t one, but I wouldn’t put it past him.