Hunting anything can be dangerous. Some might say that the odds are stacked against the prey. The word ‘predator’ is just as slippery to define when you live in Avery, but Jasper had a special dictionary all of his own. Jasper’s black pocketbook was no typical dictionary and its listing for ‘prey’ connoted a severe risk for the hunter, far outweighing that of its tormentor. Whilst the entries in it might at first glance appear unremarkable, the red ink forming the word ‘Overdue’ functioned more like a secret cypher, than a simple lexicographical notation.

That innocuous and entirely prosaic word spawned visions perhaps even Dante might have found repulsive. Like the Greek Gods, Jasper took punishment seriously and his febrile, vengeance soaked imagination would have given even Zeus a touch of the insane pleasure he and his cronies took from dishing out their own brand of divine retribution. As Jasper leafed through the battered book, the ink rose from its yellowed pages like squirming demented serpents basking in the fire of his quiet rage. They slithered into his dark heart, coalescing into brutal scenes as luridly shocking, as they were detailed.

Jasper enjoyed reading his book. He hunted down the five names he’d circled with his red biro. ‘Balance Paid’ sat beneath one of these. Jasper thought this one had been a particularly sweet treat, though there had been no sugar involved. His dirty thumb cracked and grubby, held the page in place as his right hand leafed through the book looking for inspiration. Dante had liked his circles and so did Jasper, though he’d only made five in his own map of Hell. Blake Fuller had been given his own special entry and the red ink writhed hideously under Jasper’s bitter gaze.

He placed the book deep inside the only couch cushion he possessed, then took a cold beer from the fridge and walked out to the eerily quiet veranda. The dark night sky sparkled above him, pitch black save for innumerable pin holes of bright shimmering light. He painfully dropped his frail body into the rocking chair. Ancient knees roared their disapproval, sending spasms of white-hot pain through his tortured sinews. The pain would oil the works. Jasper seldom wasted anything, least of all that which connected him with his blood lust. He’d spent decades recycling parts and transmuting his discomfort into that of another. It had become a practiced talent and he was a master.

Death was not enough. He wanted Fuller to suffer. Jasper had needed that account to be settled to pay for his wife’s morphine. Fuller relinquished on his promise to pay the bill and her screams were now an infernal choir conjuring up his next plan. Fuller would pay. He’d pay with interest and the bank of Jasper was especially rigorous about collecting its dues. If Fuller had known what Jasper had in store for him, he’d probably have blown his own head off. As it was, only Jasper knew what that would be, and he would make sure it stayed that way regardless of Clarke and his itchy trigger finger.

Blake had been repairing the roof to his remote place at intermittent intervals over the unforgiving, arid summer. Too mean to hire in help, he gave the task his attention for a couple of hours most evenings when the sun had begun to set. Doing the work during the day would have been like finding out how a fried egg feels in a fire-heated skillet. He’d left the ladders leaning up against the shabby ranch house, less stairway to heaven, more rickety rungs to shoestring repair.

His regular climbing and descending had made the guys in the bar laugh. Fuller’s own knees were giving him hell and he did not miss a chance to complain about them when anyone made the mistake of asking him how things were. As he rubbed them ineffectually, the other drinkers savoured his distress, vampirically dining out on his misfortune and drawing comfort from it as they swilled back their beers. In Avery, another man’s displeasure was like a cool breeze on a hot day…refreshing and always welcome.

Jasper placed the items he needed in the pickup and headed out to Fuller’s place, his dimmed headlights picking out the route in the fading light as the chassis bucked beneath him like a bronco with a firework up its ass. Though Jasper kept his speed down, the track to Fuller’s place saw little traffic and the stone hard ground, riddled with deep ruts and strewn with igneous rocks punished the reinforced suspension with the same enthusiasm Jasper applied to balancing his books.

He coasted to a stealthy halt and walked the short distance to the ladder’s base. He’d been watching the place for weeks through his old field glasses and unlike many others, tonight would be the night. His prey was just where he wanted it to be…vulnerable and unsuspecting. Jasper might not be setting his hunting rifle’s parabolic scope on Fuller’s forehead, but the weapon he would train upon his enemy would still kill, and do so without a disappointingly clean shot. He had no use for bullets because they inevitably led back to their shooter. Jasper’s lethal implements always hid in plain sight and they never aroused Clarke’s suspicions.

Jasper yelled up at Fuller as his quarry nailed down the last sheet of the day. “Hey cocksucker, I wanna fuck your pretty little ass…come down and bend over for me …I’ve got lube”. Words can be provocative especially when you know which ones will get the response you want. Fuller, barely controlling himself, threw the weighty hammer at Jasper, missing him and turning his attention to making his enraged descent the last thing Jasper would ever see. He’d pick the hammer up and use it to make the old shit suffer.

As Fuller’s meaty frame stepped onto the rung just above Jasper’s head, he slapped the branch cutter into Fuller’s shoulders and yanked on his catch. Fuller winced and toppled to the ground landing awkwardly as his bulk was violently pounded by the unyielding desert soil. Jasper dropped the cutter and brought the thick crowbar down on Fuller’s left elbow, shattering it as though he’d smashed its claw into a rotten piece of wood. Fuller screamed and rolled away from the next blow, the crowbar finding his right ankle too appetising to ignore. Fuller’s yelp was quickly followed by mumbled pleas for Jasper to stop, the words forced out through waves of crippling, pain-laced misery.

Jasper did stop. He’d needed to catch his breath and put the rest of his plan into play. Though he needed to be quick, he also wanted to take his time. The mutually exclusive imperatives twisted themselves into an unholy union and Jasper counted to ten, savouring every syllable as Fuller writhed in ever increasing agony. He began to sob and was barely holding consciousness as the pain exploded within him like buckshot ripping through soft flesh.

Jasper stepped around the bleeding mess in front of him and struck Fuller’s left ankle with the savage force only known by the truly insane. Jasper had one more blow inside him, his own body squealing from the effort of the brutal attack. He chose Fuller’s left knee and let the crowbar smash into its target like a wrecking ball. The sound of Fuller’s patella imploding would have given him a hard on a few years ago, but Jasper stoically accepted the fact that fucking someone now was a different type of pleasure altogether.

He'd want Fuller conscious for as long as possible. No point wasting all that pain on a man unable to feel it. He walked back to his truck and retrieved the wood. He’d slide it under Fuller’s limp neck when he was sure Fuller had no more fight in him …then he’d wait and listen to Fuller’s desperate, blood sodden gulps for air. Growing impatient Jasper crashed the bar into Fuller’s ribs and heard them fold in like chicken bones under a heavy boot. Fuller coughed a thick globule of blood onto the dry ground and moaned, the sound reminding Jasper of his wife as she battled the cancer without the morphine.

Jasper opened his fly and pissed on Fuller’s crotch. Zipping himself up, he placed the pillow over Fuller’s face and gave him a few more minutes in hell’s waiting room. Fuller’s muffled sobs would let him know when. He stepped on his victim’s skull until he heard the crack.

Jasper cleared up his things and left Fuller’s crumpled corpse at the foot of the ladder. His own body had suffered more than it should have been forced to endure and he’d need a beer or six to hush its recalcitrant, plaintive complaints. As Jasper quietly manoeuvred his truck back onto the track and headed home, he reflected on the night’s work. He’d be scrawling ‘Balance Paid’ in his book soon enough and wondered if the guys in the bar would toast Fuller’s inevitable from grace.