Avenging Angela, Part 1
By Littlesilverstar, silverstar222b@yahoo.com
A woman goes on a quest to avenge her husband's murder

If one looked at a bunch of young people and tried to figure out which one 
was most likely to become a killer, Angela Doherty would be pretty far down
on most people's lists.  She had been raised in a traditional family in a
small Alabama town.  She had been a decent student in high school and had
an attractive, girl-next-door look.  Although she was strong and athletic,
she certainly hadn't been the type to beat people up or get into fights.  
In short, she was a regular small-town girl.

If Angela's personality and background indicated that she was a normal,
stable, respectable person, her marriage would certainly back up that
assessment.  She had first met her husband-to-be, Ted, a couple of years
after she had graduated high school, when she had been working as a 
waitress during the day and attending community college classes in the
evening.  In the restaurant where she had worked, which was normally
frequented by rude, obnoxious jerks, the quiet and respectful Ted had stood
out.  He would smile at her a lot, always sit at one of her tables, and
always leave her a large tip.  Finally, one day (going against everything
her parents had taught her), she had decided to take the initiative and ask
him out.  He had accepted, they had grown closer during the following 
months, and the rest, as they say, had been history.

Angela and Ted had now been married for seven years and were a very happy
couple.  She liked the fact that her husband, although he was a traditional
gentleman, was also open to modern ideas.  Ted, a Gulf War veteran, had
taught his wife how to shoot guns, and had encouraged her to get involved 
in kickboxing (which she discovered she had a natural talent for).  Angela
(at the time) took very seriously the belief that her skills were to be 
used for defensive purposes only and only as a last resort.

So how did Angela get started on her path of violence?

The chain of events that set that in motion began when Ted, an accountant,
received a promotion and the two of them moved from their little Alabama
town to Memphis, where Ted's company's headquarters was located.

Initially overjoyed by his new promotion, Ted soon began coming home with a
worried and disturbed look on his face.  After some encouragement from
Angela, he began telling her what was bothering him.  It seemed that his
bosses were engaged in some "creative" accounting, the same kind that had
caused companies like Enron to collapse, ruining the lives of thousands of
workers.  He had no proof yet, but he was determined to investigate further
and alert the authorities as soon as he had enough evidence.  Hopefully, it
would be in time to save the company. "They always hold secret meetings on
the 29th floor on Tuesday nights," he said. "If I could just get to them...
but they're so paranoid about it, it's going to be really hard."

"Please be careful, honey," implored Angela. "People like that will do 
anything to stay out of prison."

"Don't worry," Ted replied. "I don't think they have any idea that I'm at 
all suspicious."

Unfortunately, he was wrong.  Very, very wrong.

The spark that lit the fuse came one quiet Monday night.  It was a few
minutes before midnight and Angela and Ted were sleeping peacefully in
their bed.  Suddenly, Angela was awakened by a strange noise coming from
the living room.  She sat up straight in bed and listened carefully.  The
noise came again, followed by a man's voice giving a whispered order.

Angela's blue eyes grew big and a look of alarm appeared on her tanned 
face.  She quickly shook her husband awake. "Ted, some people have broken
into our house!" she whispered.

Ted sat up with a start.  A muffled thump was heard, then quiet footsteps,
padding towards the bedroom.

Ted immediately went to the closet and grabbed the 12-gauge shotgun that
always stood loaded and ready.  Angela, meanwhile, opened the nightstand
drawer next to the bed and took out the .38-caliber revolver that was also
kept loaded and ready.  She gripped the weapon tightly in her right hand, 
her heart thumping.  She then reached for the phone that sat on the
nightstand with her left.  Holding it to her ear, she discovered that the
phone was dead.

"They cut the phone lines," she whispered.

Her husband, shotgun at the ready, was heading for the door. "Stay here," 
he whispered to his wife.

Ted opened the door, his form disappearing into the darkened hallway.  A
second later, she heard the familiar sound of the shotgun going off.  And
a second after that, she heard several more gunshots, followed by Ted's
agonized voice. "Angie, it's them!" Then came the sound of bodies hitting
the floor.

Angela raced out into the hallway, gun at the ready.  She felt a lump in
her throat when she saw her husband's inert body lying on the carpet.  Her
body shaking, she saw a man take aim at her.  She fired two shots into his
chest.  He slumped to the floor, his pistol falling next to his body.

More shots were fired at her, and a bullet grazed her hair.  She dove back
into the cover of the bedroom, then leaned out into the hall and fired two
more shots at an armed figure standing in the living room.  The first shot
shattered a valuable Ming vase.  The second shattered the man's kneecap.
With a howl of pain, he collapsed to the floor, dropping his weapon and
clutching his mutilated knee.

A bullet slammed into the wall at the end of the hallway.  How many of 
these guys were there? Angela leaned out again and saw another man in the
living room.  She squeezed off a shot, hitting him in the shoulder.  He
stumbled and banged his head on the wall, then slid down to the floor.

She waited, fully alert.  All was quiet except for loud groans coming from
the living room.  Advancing down the hall, gun in hand, she bent over her
husband's body.  He was dead.  She felt the tears start to flow down her
face.  She knelt over him, touching his face as she sobbed.

Another groan reminded her that there were still some immediate problems to
be dealt with.  Pulling herself away from Ted's body, she examined the body
of the intruder she had shot in the chest.  He was also dead.  Further down
the hall, there was another dead man, this one shot by Ted.

Angela entered the living room.  The two wounded men were both lying on the
carpet, moaning in pain.  She kicked their guns away from them.  The man
she had shot in the shoulder gave her a scowl and spat on the floor.  With 
a shrill scream, she kicked him as hard as she could in the crotch.  She 
felt a cold smile appear on her face as he let out a horrible scream.
Turning on the other man, she stomped down hard on his ruined knee.  Her
cold smile grew broader as his scream joined that of his companion.

She remembered what Ted had shouted right before he died. "It's them!" They
must have been sent by his bosses, who had somehow found out that he was
investigating them.  She took a closer look at the four assassins and became
even more convinced of it.  They were much too well-dressed for common
criminals, and they were a multi-racial group - two of them were white, one
was black, and one was Hispanic.  Ordinary criminals rarely cooperated with
anyone outside their own race.

She glared at the man with the broken knee. "Who sent you?" she demanded. "I
want names!" She kicked him in the side, cracking one of his ribs with the
strength of her kickboxer's legs.

The man raised himself to a crawling position, balancing on his hands and 
his good knee. "Fuck you, bitch," he spat.

With a warrior cry, Angela kicked him in the face.  There was a loud CRACK
as the power of her kick broke the thug's neck.  As his corpse slumped to 
the floor, the remaining intruder let out a squeal of fear.


She turned on him. "Now you're going to tell me who sent you," she said
icily. "You're going to tell me everything.  Cooperate, and you live.  
Refuse, and you die."

"Okay!" he whimpered. "Edward, the CEO, and Olivia, the CFO.  Of Ted's
company.  They hired us.  They're the ringleaders, but there's this whole
group that meets on Tuesday nights on the 29th floor of the headquarters
building.  They're all involved in it.  Ted was nosing around too much and
they sent us here to rub him out and make it look like an ordinary home
invasion so no one would ever suspect them."

"Thank you very much," said Angela in the same icy voice she had used
earlier. "And now, it's time for you to die, asshole.  After you suffer
some more first, of course." With that, she fired the last shot from her
revolver directly into his testicles.  His scream of pain far outdid any of
the others that had been heard that night.  Finally, the scream died down
into a pathetic, semi-continuous whimpering noise.

"But you said if I cooperated, you'd let me live!" he managed to squeak out.

"Well," said Angela, picking up the shotgun and pumping it, "I lied." 

The man began begging for mercy, but she quickly shushed him. "Did you show
any mercy to my husband? For cripes' sake, his DEAD CORPSE is lying there
not ten feet away, and you have the nerve to ask for mercy?" She aimed the
shotgun at his face. "Goodbye, asshole," she said, her deep blue eyes 
burning with hatred.  Without further ado, she blew his head off.  Blood and
brain matter splattered everywhere.

She let the shotgun clatter to the floor, then went back over to Ted's body.
The tears began flowing again, but the feelings accompanying them were not
those of sadness or mourning.  They were feelings of anger, hatred, and a
desire for vengeance.  She knew she would never be the same again.  Her 
whole body felt numb.  She was astonished by how quickly she had changed.

Wiping away her tears, she found her cell phone and called the police.  They
wouldn't have to know everything.

Hours later, after the cops and the coroner had taken away the bodies and 
finally finished questioning her, she breathed a sigh of relief.  She then
went into the bedroom.  On the wall was a peaceful-looking painting of a
pond, surrounded by green trees and with a mountain in the background.  She
lifted the painting and set it carefully on the bed, revealing the secret
wall safe concealed behind it.  Punching in the code, she opened the safe
door.  Inside, along with some gold and silver coins, were two items that
Ted had brought back from Kuwait.  One was a Browning 9mm semi-automatic
pistol.  The other was a fully automatic AK-47 rifle.  Both weapons were
unregistered and untraceable - just what she needed.  She took out both 
guns, along with some ammo, then closed the safe door and replaced the 
painting.

She paused to look at herself in the mirror.  Her shoulder-length blonde
hair was very messed up, but still looked good because it had a wild and
sexy look to it.  A look of deep hatred was still visible in her blue eyes.

A cold smile crossed Angela's face as she realized it was now Tuesday.  
Today was the day that the group which had orchestrated her husband's
murder held their secret meetings. "I feel like some party-crashing on the
29th floor of a certain building," she thought to herself.

Her eyes drifted to a photo of Ted and herself standing together, smiling,
him dressed in khaki pants and a polo shirt and her looking very innocent in
a sundress.  Taking the picture out of its frame, she ripped it in half,
taking the picture of her husband and putting it into her wallet.  The 
picture of herself she tore into little pieces and dropped them into the 
trash can.  

The innocent young woman was gone forever.

To be continued...

Comments, compliments, and constructive criticism encouraged.

silverstar222b@yahoo.com