At about 8:30 that evening, a mid-80s Ford LTD pulled into the parking lot of Peach Orchard Estates in Atlanta, Georgia. The grime and the rust patches blended surprisingly well with the faded bronze paint job of the car to present an image at once ugly, dismal, and completely forgettable.
Edmund stepped out of the car and looked around. This apartment complex was not a much better view than the car. He was in a cul-de-sac surrounded on three sides by long, two story buildings. The road outside led to several other similar lots. The ground alternated between tall brown patches of weeds and bare dirt. Scattered all over the concrete of the parking lot were empty chip bags and crushed beer cans. There were six or seven other cars parked there. The railings on the “porches” of the apartments were completely rusted through in many places. And…he couldn’t identify that smell other than…awful. From somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint came a godawful racket of “music” in which every third word was “bitch” or “nigga.”
“One does not simply walk into Mordor,” he said to himself, then chuckled at his own joke.
There were a few people, mostly young men, lounging about in front of several of the apartments. Edmund was the only white person visible, and he was intensely aware of the fact. His clothes stood out too, as he wore khakis, a dark blue polo shirt, and aviator sunglasses. At his left side, he carried a tan canvas messenger bag. Head on a swivel, do not look like prey, he told himself.
Fortunately, his destination was near the open end of the U of buildings, and he didn’t have to pass too near any of the groups of young men. None of them particularly seemed to notice him. He strode towards the unit and up the concrete stairs, careful not to put any weight on the railing.
Once on the second floor landing, Edmund reached into the messenger bag and pulled out a 6 inch square bluetooth speaker. He pushed a few buttons on it, and soon had his own racket of “music” going, largely indistinguishable from what was coming from other corners of the complex. He set it down by the wall near where the stairs came up.
Edmund then knocked on a door marked C-204, and stood, back to the wall, angled so he could keep an eye on the other buildings. He heard someone answer from inside, but couldn’t make out the words.
After an uncomfortably long wait, in which he heard a couple more inarticulate calls, the door opened a crack, and a lean middle-aged black woman peered through. She had a colorful patterned scarf tied over her hair.
“Hello?” she said, her voice was slightly creaky.
“Good evening. Are you Mrs. Simmons?” They both had to raise their voices to be heard above the rap music blaring from the speaker nearby.
“Ms. Simmons, yes.”
He nodded. “Ms. Erica Simmons?”
“Yes, what’s this about?”
Edmund flashed what looked like a police badge at her. “Officer Pickett with Georgia State Police, I’m here to talk to you about your son Darryl.”
Ms. Simmons squinted at him through the crack. “Well, there just has to be some mistake. My Darryl’s a good boy.”
Edmund looked down and grinned bitterly. What was coming next had just become much easier. He smoothed out his expression and looked back up to Ms. Simmons.
“You misunderstood me, ma’am. I’m not here about something Darryl’s done. I’m here to inform you that he’s been shot.”
Ms. Simmons eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Oh! Oh no!”
She also stepped back and let the door open further. Edmund stepped forward just slightly, making sure his right foot blocked the door closing any further.
“Ms. Simmons, Darryl is alive. He is in serious condition, but as of two hours ago, the doctors thought he had a good chance of surviving.”
Edmund looked inside the apartment, apparently not much larger than his studio in Montana. To his shock, it was actually neat and orderly. The contrast to the wasteland outside was stark.
“Oh, my baby. My poor, poor baby,” said Ms. Simmons. She turned away and sat down on a dark green couch a little to the right of the doorway. Edmund stepped in and shut the door behind him. The bass thump of the rap and an occasional “nigga” could still be heard from the porch.
When the door closed behind him, a great deal of tension eased out of Edmund, and he shook his head briskly, like someone shaking himself awake after nodding off.
“You know,” he said, “when I first planned this, I felt sorry for you. It wasn’t really about you, you know? You were more or less in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Ms. Simmons was lost in her own world of grief and wasn’t really listening to him.
“But then,” Edmund continued, “I found out about your other children, two more boys and a girl. Well, men and a woman now.”
Ms. Simmons was starting to listen again now, and her face was a mixture of grief and confusion.
“If I recall correctly, between the four of them, there are five domestic abuse charges, seven aggravated assault charges, eleven criminal trespass and six burglary charges, two sexual assault charges, one rape charge.” As he was saying this, Edmund was scanning the room. He spotted a cell phone on the kitchen counter about ten feet from Ms. Simmons.
“Wha—mister, what you are you talking about? What does this have to do with Darryl getting shot?”
As if he didn’t hear her, Edmund continued, “There’s more. And these are just the ones they’re charged with. What fell between the cracks, God alone knows.”
Ms. Simmons started to get up, but Edmund gestured for her to stay seated. She sat back down and turned her face away slightly in fear.
“Officer, is my Darryl going to be okay?”
Edmund finally woke up to her presence again. “Oh, um. No, no, he’s not. I’m going to kill him.”
He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a Smith & Wesson 9mm with a suppressor screwed onto the barrel.
Ms. Simmons stared at him in complete incomprehension. “Wha—what? What did you say?”
“It is stunning, honestly, the amount of human misery you have managed to produce.”
She looked down from his face and saw the gun in his hand, not yet pointed at her. She opened her mouth to scream.
Edmund pointed the gun at her face. “Don’t. I mean, you can, but people probably won’t hear over that ‘music’ out there. Also, if you do, I’ll shoot you.”
Ms. Simmons closed her mouth, and started looking around frantically, her head trembling as she did so. She spotted the phone on the counter and started to get up.
“Let’s say you did call the police. You and I both know it will be at least ten minutes before they arrive. And there’s a fifty-fifty chance they won’t come at all. What help is that?”
She collapsed back onto the couch and stared up at him. “Why are you—?”
“Because your ‘good boy’ killed my son, and someone has to pay. My God, the offspring you produced. You’re not a mother. You’re a portal to spawn demons in from Hell.”
She looked down. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
Something snapped inside Edmund. “My son never even got the chance to say that!” He lowered the gun slightly and shot her in the gut. The bark of the gun’s firing was unpleasant, but not outright painful.
Ms. Simmons did not shout so much as grunt. After a moment to catch her breath, she started a low, steady moan of pain.
“I’d really prefer to let this last, draw it out, but as I can’t risk you surviving…” Edmund shot her a second time in the thigh, which and blood spurted out onto the couch and the grey carpeted floor. After another exclamation of shock, Ms. Simmons continued to moan softly.
Edmund got to work immediately. He pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves and put them on, then went into the kitchen and started dumping out drawers on the floor, throwing dishes from the cabinets. He found, in the back of one cabinet, a pickle jar which had money in it. He grabbed the money and tossed the jar on the floor.
As he headed for the small bedroom, Ms. Simmons, through labored breathing, asked, “What…you…doing?”
Over his shoulder, without stopping, Edmund answered, “Home invasion. Armed robbery. You know, same thing your kids did a few of? Pity it went wrong and the robber shot you. Happens sometimes.”
He ransacked her bedroom as well, dumping the contents of the drawers on the floor, grabbing and stuffing a tablet into his messenger bag and grabbing another envelope of cash.
The tablet, of course, would be throw into a nearby waterway as soon as possible, but stealing it sold the scene.
Finally, he headed to the door. Before leaving, Edmund surveyed his work for a moment, then nodded. Ms. Simmons was still gasping on the couch, but without immediate medical attention, her life was measured in minutes, not hours.
He replaced his gun back in the bag, then grabbed her phone off the counter and, upon stepping outside, flung it as hard as he could out into the parking lot. He didn’t watch where it landed.
There was just a little light in the west yet at the open end of the U of buildings.
Turning to the left where he’d set down the speaker, he leaned down to turn it off and put it back in his bag. As he stood up, he heard tires screeching behind him.
Turning around, he saw a car fairly similar to the one he’d driven in parked slantwise across the road into the cul-de-sac. Five young black men jumped out and took positions behind the car, from which they immediately started shooting at several of those who had been lounging on porches at the other end of the complex. Everyone there darted back inside, but a few came back out armed and started returning fire.
Edmund watched this a few moments, utterly still. His current position was nowhere near the line of fire, but…his car was right in the middle of it. And the assaulting gang had neatly blocked the road out with their own car.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said. He’d known this was a high crime area. That was, in fact, a crucial part of his plan: a homicide in an area like this with no clear suspects was likely to get dropped pretty quickly. But to get caught up in the middle of a gang fight like this? And one where one side had actually planned ahead? What kind of luck was that?
He could not stay here until this was finished. Who knew what the victorious gang would do? For that matter, would his car be in any condition to get him out of here?
Once he reached the bottom of these stairs, he’d be in danger. From there, about thirty yards to his car. Nothing for it. Time to go.
Edmund drew the 9 mm from the messenger bag, took a deep breath, and hurtled down the stairs. Once at the bottom, he sprinted for the car. After a few steps, though, his foot came down on an empty beer bottle and went out from under him. He lay on his back a moment as the gunshots and cursing continued from both sides.
Edmund rolled to his feet, grabbed his gun again, and kept moving, watching his footing now. Just as he reached the car, he felt a sudden burning pain in his right side. He screamed and stumbled, then righted himself and pulled the car door open.
Once behind the wheel, he looked at the car blocking the exit and made a quick calculation. The front of the car must weigh more. Starting his car, he pulled out in a T-turn, aimed for the trunk of the gangbangers’ car, and slammed the gas to the floor. He hit the other car with a loud crunch, held the gas down and started pushing it aside. As it slowly skidded out of the way, the gangbangers started shooting at him. Fortunately, the crash still had them confused and disoriented, and no other shots came close, although he was showered with broken glass when the passenger side window was shot in.
With a shriek of metal, the bumper of the other car pulled loose, and he was free.
As he drove away, Edmund heard a couple of pings of shots hitting the back of his car. He glanced in the rear view and saw the thugs had regrouped and focused their attention back on their original targets. He put his hand to his side. Blood…and pain.
He navigated his way out of the apartment complex and drove away from the sound of sirens.
The Mayor of Christ Mountain 
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